5 Examples of why F should NOT replace TH.
I have been meaning to write a post about this for some time. The decline of our English language is bothering me…and what makes it even worse is that no one seems to be correcting our youth.
Let me give you just 5 examples of why F should NOT replace TH. First the actual word, then the word that people seem to replace them with.
Table of Contents
1.
This is open to a lot of confusion. Especially if you are going to work within the finance industry. You could lose your company a LOT of money!
2.
I was always lead to believe that a frill was something you found on a dress or cake!
3.
How on earth can you say ‘I fought’ and not sound like you have been in physical combat?
4.
Say this after me ‘Three Thirsty Thieves’ – NOT ‘free firsty fieves’! How on earth can that mean anything?
5.
You are getting ‘finner’ or want to be ‘fin’? What are you? A fish or something?!
I think you are getting the gist here! Our language is slowing sinking into a shameful depth of decline.
Thankfully (or maybe that should be ‘fankfully’?!) Ross and I made sure that we corrected Grace at an early age. We even recall her coming home from school to tell us that she had had to explain the ‘three’ and ‘free’ situation to one of her friends. During Year Two her teacher, Mrs King, did correct the children on their ‘th’s’ but now Grace is telling us that many of the teachers aren’t and, in fact, a number of them also can’t say their ‘th’s.
Please, if you find your child mispronouncing their ‘th’s’, please correct them. Otherwise, when they grow up, there is going to be an awful lot of people talking at cross purposes.
Does this annoy you? Do you have any examples of poor pronunciation?
I am thrilled to say that Verily Victoria Vocalises has been shortlisted for the Social Media Category at the Brilliance in Blogging Awards. I would love your vote to help me to get to the finals and to be in with a chance of winning. Simply pop over to http://bit.ly/1GBA8iG
i don’t mind so much with children while they are learning but I despair at people who forget to pronounce a letter in a word, such as the T in butter or sound a K at the end of a word instead of ‘ing’ for example ‘nothing’
It’s funny you should post this Vic, my daughter’s talking is brilliant now (she’s 3 in August) but I have noticed she hasn’t mastered the ‘th’ yet. It’s a lot of ‘f’ words. I’m already correcting her a lot but it must be the natural way to say it at the beginning – something I’d never realised. I guess some people just don’t teach it the right way hence why it creeps in. Hate it when things that aren’t pronounced properly – especially when a bit of teaching & help could fix it. Love your examples x
It does annoy me and I love your examples! 🙂 x
I have a friend who texts ‘fanks’ instead of thanks, but, I know, at least I hope, he’s just being daft!
I genuinely don’t even know where to start with what annoys me about speech, grammar and spelling these days (She says, sounding 98 instead of 28!) Misuse of apostrophes is a huge one, their, there and they’re being used incorrectly, Americanisms creeping in… I despair!xx #PoCoLo
Hahaha! this made me laugh. You hear it everywhere don’t you! Pickle is such a good talker at such a young age. I would correct him, definitely! Kaz x
Drives me nuts too! It is one that a lot of children struggle with initially, but you just have to keep helping them with it x
I didn’t know that English kids had problems pronouncing ‘th’. I am Polish and my English sounds good, but for most of Polish people who learn English ‘th’ is super hard to pronounce. Though the way they say it you would not confuse it with ‘f’ 🙂
Yes, it annoys me too. It’s wrong! And when ‘h’ is pronounced ‘haitch’… Don’t get me started on that one either! It’s vital to correct at an early age, particularly with the emphasis on phonics in our schools.
YES YES YES!!!! Drives me insane! I love your examples, I may have to use these in future! xx
oh I am so with you on this Vicky! We live in an area where a lot of people can’t say th and it bugs the heck out of me. We are determined our kids will speak correctly. The worst of it is, some people I know have called their son Theo… but they pronounce it Feo. The mind boggles! xx
We have been doing a lot of work with rhymes lately. My little’s favorite is finding things that rhyme with “bucket”. she’s very clever
Agree Victoria but I’m a bit ‘angry from Tunbridge Wells’ about the decline in grammer and speech altogether really – especially on the BBC! Grrrrr…. great post x #PoCoLo
Oh Victoria, this is one of those topics that could get me going on a long rant. I ALWAYS correct my children and it drives me mad when they don’t speak properly. I hate the ‘TH’ vs ‘F’, I correct my children’s friends too. I can’t stand to hear it.
There’s also the wouldn’t vs wunt or couldn’t… (you see where I’m going). I HATE that. My boys WILL speak properly, if it kills me!
Great post Victoria.
PS: I’m shutting up now before I take over your comment section. 😉
Big man struggles with this, but don’t worry we are correcting him!
Big man stuggles with this but don’t worry we do keep correcting him!
YES! This drives me mad as well, and I know some adults who mispronounces these frequently. I don’t know if it’s frequent in the UK (I highly doubt it), but here in the states, people have also taken the liberties of saying “use” instead of you (eg: Use should really get your car fixed). I have no earthly idea why, but hearing it is like nails to a chalkboard. Thank you for sharing and hosting this week’s PoCoLo! Have a wonderful weekend
This drives me mad too. I have a friend who is a solicitor who uses f instead of th. I have to bite my tongue!
I am with you all the way!!! It is so annoying when people say something but don’t pronounce it correctly! We do have always shown our kids how to pronounce th but there are a lot of people who can’t do it!
Brilliant! As an ex teacher I absolutely love this. Now can you do a post about how ‘a lot’ is two words…ggrrrrr!
#PoCoLo
So very true – this is something that frustrates me too. Love your pictures – will definitely be trying to make sure my girls learn to pronounce ‘th’ properly.
It’s my pet peeve when people say it the wrong way too! Interesting read, and I hope it clears some confusion.
This is THAB hon, tee hee see what I did there 😉 makes me sad when my girls say things like ’nuffink’ xx
This is so true. When I’m older my mummy is going to make sure I pronounce ‘th’ correctly’ 😉 #PoCoLo
My three year old does this but I hear older children doing it too.
I am so with you on this. Another one that annoys me is ‘has’ and ‘as’. How can you mic these two words up? I think it looks even worse when it written incorrectly too.
I hate it too. I’ve been picking up N on this exact thing. It’s driving me insane. He won’t even repeat it back to me – I think because I’ve pointed it out. Although he is tongue tied slightly, the speech therapist who assessed him 18 months ago said his sounds were all correct, so I’m hoping it’s sloppiness and I can correct it by me speaking more slowly and clearly, repeating what he says correctly. Otherwise it’s just going to wind me up forever!
have to say I pick up the grandchildren on mispronunciation but it annoys their mum that I pick them up she says to leave them, but I think it is like a lot of other things ( people that never iron, kids that never polish shoes) this generation are just plain lazy and anything for an easy life.
But then my grandfather always wore a shirt and tie and would turn in his graves at tv presenters looking scruffy and standing with their hands in their pockets but that seems to be acceptable now as well.
One of my pet hates is F instead of TH, it’s just laziness. You are spot on with this post, excellent 🙂
Completely agree, (though I must admit some of the images did make me giggle) I am really keen to make sure that Boo pronounces things correctly (in both English and Danish) I think it is key that both parents and teachers help children with things like this.
I worked in special needs and within a speech therapy programme had to try and teach a child to pronounce their ‘th’. He could only say ‘vu’ instead of ‘the’. It’s stuck with me and was always correcting the kids, if he managed it anyone could!
Oh yes – I really think you’re spot on with this. I know children struggle initially with these sounds, but I think it would be great if parents and teachers helped them more … because like your examples show, there are some very different meanings when the initial th sounds like an f, and it can make it hard to learn to spell