F Instead Of Th

[supapapa]

Are people who say F instead of TH being lazy or do they have a speech impediment?

[Cloverjo]

My son does this and he is neither lazy nor thick. I've tried to teach him how his mouth should be in order to make the "th" sound, but he just can't do it.

[jim360]

I'm the same as your son, cloverjo. Free = three, the way I say it...

[Psybbo]

Three speech just doesn't sound right

[jim360]

At leaft I don't have a lifp alfo?

[BlackadderV]

I have noticed that those who pronounce the soft th as f, as in fick for thick, have no problem with the hard th; they don't say fis or vis for this.

[-Talbot-]

It has nothing to do with being thick


'Sixty four fousand pounds'


Who said that earlier tonight?

[Psybbo]

I seem to have a phetish about Mick!

[Prudie]

yes he has the fwoar thactor

[BlackadderV]

My point is that people with such a speech defect can say the or this, but not thin.

[-Talbot-]

lol


Mark Labbett

[Tilly2]

They can BA but they don't.

[Prudie]

Ah, he who thought (or rather didn't think') that prima donna and diva came from the world of ballet.
He is also sexy.

[mazie]

Mark Labbett, he does it all the time Talbot. You can't really call him thick

[-Talbot-]

I'd better bang some weight on then!

[-Talbot-]

mazie
Mark Labbett, he does it all the time Talbot. You can't really call him thick



Pardon?

[BlackadderV]

Let's leave this for a moment and turn our attention to those who replace R with W. Now that weally, weally wubs me up the wong ray something wotten.

[rodders123]

I had this problem many years ago in the fifties with the letter s. My parents were informed that I had a serious speech defect by some interfering body who were visiting the school. It turned out to be nothing more than the gap in my two front teeth, where I said thun instead of sun. Didn't bother me until I said I needed a thit and was directed to an armchair.

[BlackadderV]

Nice one rodders!

[rodders123]

I'm cwying blackadder

[beso]

Consider the roots of English. It comes from Old German which goes back to Latin.

In Latin the "th" is theta. Theta made it into Old German but after English split off, "th" was dropped in favour of "d". The change started in High German and progress through the language.

This is why "the" in German is "die" and "that" is "dass" etc

Similar changes would have eventually come to English and it can be seen in where "the" is sometime replaced with "da" in some dialects. It is actually easier to say.

Such changes ended when languages were documented, inhibiting further change.

What we ended up with is a ridiculous system where spelling has little relationship to phonics and the rules make little sense so I wouldn't get too picky about what some people choose to do with pronounciation, sorry pronunciation. See what I mean?