4 ms·

Why are so many young British men suddenly unable to pronounce th's?

bloak 3y ago
What are they saying instead of th, when did this start, and is it particular parts of Britain or particular social groups? (Using f/v instead of th has long been a feature of some London dialects, and using t/d instead of th has long been a feature of some Irish dialects, and young children often use f/v instead of th, I think. Jocular references to "the youf" have been around in print for a while.) EDIT: Of course there's also Jamaican pronunciation with t/d instead of th!
- arethuza 3y ago
  As an aside, the dialect I used in my youth used "f" a lot - fit, fa, fan and far for what, who, when and where. Leading to "Fit fit fits fit fit" making sense...
  - drcongo 3y ago
    North east?
    - arethuza 3y ago
      Yes, from a village near Buckie. Which would probably be "Fae aside Buckie".
      - drcongo 3y ago
        Thanks, that's about as north east as one could get!
- urubu 3y ago
  There is a technical linguistic term for it - th fronting: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th-fronting Apparently it's been around for quite a bit of time.
andybak 3y ago
If you tell us what they say instead then I can probably give you some insight. There's "bovvered" or there's "what da hell" or there's "fankyou"... I can probably think of several more dialects where "th" is replaced with something else.
nicktelford 3y ago
There's nothing sudden about it. Many regional (mostly city) accents have common mis-pronounciation. "th" being mis-pronounced as either "f" or "v" was extremely common in the area I grew up 20+ years ago, and I'm sure it predates me.
- PrimeMcFly 3y ago
  I'll take that any day over some of what passes for dialects in the US.
globular-toast 3y ago
I believe this is a sign of a hearing problem. Some children are unable to hear a strong difference between certain sounds so, to them, they are speaking the same as everyone else. It used to be that those children would be identified and given special help to allow them to hear better. I remember having eye and ear tests at school. Maybe this has stopped now? The tragedy is that this is a huge dividing factor in the UK. In all the places I've worked the vast majority of people use the distinct "th" sounds. Use of "f" and "v" sounds is, to use the current terminology, a "red flag".
- ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
  Doesn't seem likely to me - it's common with specific strong dialects and often associated with working class people. As it's regional, I don't see it being a hearing related issue (not that I think it's an issue anyhow).
  - nelox 3y ago
    I agree. Most speakers could probably switch to any manner of accent at will.
- elros 3y ago
  You mean a red thlag?
- lozenge 3y ago
  That's classism, Britain is a very classist country.
eth0up 3y ago
Why have Americans always been unable to pronounce the intervocalic T? Bread and budder? WTF? I'm an author; I love horseback writing? I'm tired of wading for the flood? I want to ride my modercycle? It's so pervasive that we really ought to update our dictionaries to replace these, now phantom, "t"s with proper "d"s. Think of it as antipsychotics for a batshit crazy language. I'm American. But this has always been annoying, along with most of the eN language. To cast a cynical eye on the bright side; it seems both the "t" and "d" will soon be obsolete as the entire eN language is refined to tonal variations of our most common word/punctuation/expression/noise, "like". I may be mistaken, but I believe there's evidence that new humans are forming a "like-gland". The sound will become as natural and necessary as that of frogs bleating* after rain. *Yes, bleating, not bleeding.
- ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
  Reminds me of going into a shop while visiting the U.S. and trying to buy some batteries. The employee struggled with my english accent, so I had to try to explain what batteries where. He eventually understood and exclaimed "oh, badderies!".
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - yamtaddle 3y ago
    I've got a friend with a story from his high school job at a retail store, about his having to translate for the other workers so they could figure out WTF this British guy was asking for. "Batcheries" [EDIT] That's not me trying to, like, contradict or counter your story—occurred to me it might come off that way. I just think it's funny that that specific word has so many cross-accent issues.
- tgv 3y ago
  The t can also disappear. I've heard people say "twenny" instead of "twenty". Perhaps because "twendy" sounds more like Elmer Fudd giving Bugs Bunny decoration advice.
- 3y ago

What are they saying instead of th, when did this start, and is it particular parts of Britain or particular social groups? (Using f/v instead of th has long been a feature of some London dialects, and using t/d instead of th has long been a feature of some Irish dialects, and young children often use f/v instead of th, I think. Jocular references to "the youf" have been around in print for a while.) EDIT: Of course there's also Jamaican pronunciation with t/d instead of th!

arethuza 3y ago
As an aside, the dialect I used in my youth used "f" a lot - fit, fa, fan and far for what, who, when and where. Leading to "Fit fit fits fit fit" making sense...
- drcongo 3y ago
  North east?
  - arethuza 3y ago
    Yes, from a village near Buckie. Which would probably be "Fae aside Buckie".
    - drcongo 3y ago
      Thanks, that's about as north east as one could get!
urubu 3y ago
There is a technical linguistic term for it - th fronting: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th-fronting Apparently it's been around for quite a bit of time.

andybak 3y ago

If you tell us what they say instead then I can probably give you some insight. There's "bovvered" or there's "what da hell" or there's "fankyou"... I can probably think of several more dialects where "th" is replaced with something else.

nicktelford 3y ago

There's nothing sudden about it. Many regional (mostly city) accents have common mis-pronounciation. "th" being mis-pronounced as either "f" or "v" was extremely common in the area I grew up 20+ years ago, and I'm sure it predates me.

PrimeMcFly 3y ago
I'll take that any day over some of what passes for dialects in the US.

globular-toast 3y ago

I believe this is a sign of a hearing problem. Some children are unable to hear a strong difference between certain sounds so, to them, they are speaking the same as everyone else. It used to be that those children would be identified and given special help to allow them to hear better. I remember having eye and ear tests at school. Maybe this has stopped now? The tragedy is that this is a huge dividing factor in the UK. In all the places I've worked the vast majority of people use the distinct "th" sounds. Use of "f" and "v" sounds is, to use the current terminology, a "red flag".

ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
Doesn't seem likely to me - it's common with specific strong dialects and often associated with working class people. As it's regional, I don't see it being a hearing related issue (not that I think it's an issue anyhow).
- nelox 3y ago
  I agree. Most speakers could probably switch to any manner of accent at will.
elros 3y ago
You mean a red thlag?
lozenge 3y ago
That's classism, Britain is a very classist country.

eth0up 3y ago

Why have Americans always been unable to pronounce the intervocalic T? Bread and budder? WTF? I'm an author; I love horseback writing? I'm tired of wading for the flood? I want to ride my modercycle? It's so pervasive that we really ought to update our dictionaries to replace these, now phantom, "t"s with proper "d"s. Think of it as antipsychotics for a batshit crazy language. I'm American. But this has always been annoying, along with most of the eN language. To cast a cynical eye on the bright side; it seems both the "t" and "d" will soon be obsolete as the entire eN language is refined to tonal variations of our most common word/punctuation/expression/noise, "like". I may be mistaken, but I believe there's evidence that new humans are forming a "like-gland". The sound will become as natural and necessary as that of frogs bleating* after rain. *Yes, bleating, not bleeding.

ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
Reminds me of going into a shop while visiting the U.S. and trying to buy some batteries. The employee struggled with my english accent, so I had to try to explain what batteries where. He eventually understood and exclaimed "oh, badderies!".
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- yamtaddle 3y ago
  I've got a friend with a story from his high school job at a retail store, about his having to translate for the other workers so they could figure out WTF this British guy was asking for. "Batcheries" [EDIT] That's not me trying to, like, contradict or counter your story—occurred to me it might come off that way. I just think it's funny that that specific word has so many cross-accent issues.
tgv 3y ago
The t can also disappear. I've heard people say "twenny" instead of "twenty". Perhaps because "twendy" sounds more like Elmer Fudd giving Bugs Bunny decoration advice.
3y ago