Can anybody say the letter T properly anymore???!!!

Youki-Hi

Kold wrote:

I say my 't's. Of course, I'm English and as a result, can talk.

Dude, with that attitude you are never gonna get laid. Unlucky.

I personally find the dropping of the T's to be really sexy, if it's in an accent and that's why. I mean if it's just English people dropping their T's because they're not bothered pronouncing words properly then meh, I can live without it. But if it's an Irish guy whispering sweet nothings in my ear...mmmmm.... So, the rest of you. Get over it. I bet you guys speak like retards half the time anyway.

Eoin

Kold wrote:

Well every country has lower class scum... We tried to move most of them out... It was a reeeally bad idea to give you guys British passports

Wonder why you have been banned...

If you read the Ross O'Carroll Kelly books, you will see a brilliant p1ss take of the southside accent ("Dort" speak): "Sorcha is like studying Orts in UCD, roish". Excellent books, but sadly can recognise too many characters I know.

And as for your earlier comments Kold, more people come to Ireland than to England every year to learn English, because on the whole we tend to speak the lingo better.

The AA Road watch stuff is incredible, but the most annoying accent by far for me is the sports news guy on 98 FM (Jonny Lyons I think). I can't even describe how annoying I find him. He is up there with adverts for Harvey Norman & crazy frog in the annoyance stakes.

Frankie Smith

I find English people's grammar generally to be of a poor standard. And I don't like AA Roadwatch's Conor Faughnan.

dSTAR

simu wrote:

I'm thinking these South Dubliners go for some sort of mix of English/Australian/American English because they think an Irish accent is beneath them.

I have lived out of Ireland almost all my adult life and still cringe when I hear most Irish accents. I would describe my accent as a very neutral accent with a little twinge of Australian, American and even English having lived in all three countries for many years.

Irish accents are a source of amusement here in Australia. I have a four year old daughter who can pronounce her words better than some well known Irish people that have appeared on Aussie TV or in Irish movies.

Recently there was a slot on breakfast TV where a weather presenter from Melbourne went over to Ireland to cover Irish weather. All he did was spend his time taking the piss out of Irish accents which actually made Irish people sound like complete idiots. After he returned to Australia he said that although he had a great time he couldn't understand what most people were talking about.

He claims to have visited many countries and even the countries where the locals did not speak English he could understand them better than Irish people.

I think this is a shame and should be something the Irish educational system and goverment should look at.

Mordecai

australians slag our accents! they are the worst people in the world, and have no right at all to slag our accents. they speak mangled english and should be teased.

Dinner

Mordecai wrote:

australians slag our accents! they are the worst people in the world, and have no right at all to slag our accents. they speak mangled english and should be teased.

And most of them end all sentances like a question. I think its called AQI, Australian Question something.

dudara

In fairness, in Hiberno-english, there is a tendancy to drop "t"s and especially "th"s. "De paper" anyone?

But that's fine because we're Irish. It's the over elaborate and often incorrect elocution of those annoying radio presenters that gets to me.

simu

dSTAR wrote:

Recently there was a slot on breakfast TV where a weather presenter from Melbourne went over to Ireland to cover Irish weather. All he did was spend his time taking the piss out of Irish accents which actually made Irish people sound like complete idiots. After he returned to Australia he said that although he had a great time he couldn't understand what most people were talking about.

Mockery of other nations on a weather show is acceptable and not idiotic then, is it?

He claims to have visited many countries and even the countries where the locals did not speak English he could understand them better than Irish people.

Poor guy - maybe the government ahould compensate him for the trauma.

I think this is a shame and should be something the Irish educational system and goverment should look at.

Different accents develop naturally and none is intrinsically better than the other. There are historical reasons why Irish people speak the ways they do and although I accept that individual people might want to change their accents, a government programme to change the accents of Irish children (into what? - English or American?) would be a denial of our history and totally unacceptable imo.

ecksor

I love having an Irish accent. It gets a good reaction anywhere I go.

Quite bizarrely, my dodgy way of pronouncing the th sound gets most ridiculed by some londoners who pronounce it like an f ...

dSTAR

simu wrote:

Mockery of other nations on a weather show is acceptable and not idiotic then, is it?

I am not saying that I endorse this. I have actually written to Channel 7 to complain about how Irish people were portrayed by mimicking their accents which was acknowledged on the show by the presenter.

simu wrote:

...a government programme to change the accents of Irish children (into what? - English or American?) would be a denial of our history and totally unacceptable imo.

I didn't suggest that the goverment should install a program to change the accents to English or American accents. Nor am I am suggesting Irish people deny their history either. A few elecution lessons might not go astray though.

I have lived in England, United States and Australia and each in those countries I have heard residents of those countries either complain that they could not understand how Irish co-workers spoke or had a laugh at the pronunciation of certain words such as three or thirty.

Is it acceptable that Irish people speak a muddled version of pigeon English that is indecipherable to other English speakers around the world?

Mordecai wrote:

australians slag our accents! they are the worst people in the world, and have no right at all to slag our accents. they speak mangled english and should be teased.

Obviously you have never been to Australia and think you know what an Aussie accents is from watching Aussie soaps. Australians speak the best English in the world (apart from the ockerisms) and have many unique turns of phrase and Australianisms that would make many an Irish writer salivate at their unique phrases and word play.

I think that some Irish accents are very melodic and I am sure that many females would agree when they hear the accents of say Liam Neeson, Brian McFadden or even Colin Farrell (who has a bit of a bad boy charm with matching accent!). But then I listen to online radio stations such as 2FM or listeners calling in to talkback radio such as 98FM and wince when I hear the way some people speak.

How hard is it to pronounce words beginning with the letters T and H? It seems to be plain laziness. If my daughter mispronounced a word I would correct her. Why isn't this happening in Irish schools?

simu

dSTAR wrote:

Is it acceptable that Irish people speak a muddled version of pigeon English that is indecipherable to other English speakers around the world?

Well, Irish people have managed to be successful all over the English-speaking world so it's not much of an issue really.

bonkey

eoin_s wrote:

If you read the Ross O'Carroll Kelly books, you will see a brilliant p1ss take of the southside accent ("Dort" speak):

Ackschually its the Dorsch, not the Dort. Roysch?

One reason for the "T as sch" that I've heard for a long time is that many people's T-sounds come across highly sibilantly when recorded (particularly analog recording), and the tsch / sch variant ends up sounding cleaner than what sounds like a bite of static on every T.

The simple truth is that no traceable english accent is without its foibles, and Dorsch-speak just (unfortunately) happens to be growing in current popularity in Ireland.

Whats even funnier is the counter-culture sprining up, where more and more D4-speakers seem to be trying to sound Norfsoide, because D4 has evolved into Dorsch, which is no longer cool because :

a) Too many people speak it, roysch
b) R.O.C.K. has parodied it too well.

Moving onwards...

Many English people whom I would consider to have (otherwise) very good pronounciation have a great habit of doubling g soungs. Thus, singer becomes "sing-ger" (the second g being hard, not sibilant).

One of my teachers used to love pointing out Clare peoples' inability to say "Ten thin men in a tent", as it came out "Tin tin min in a tint" (he was a Clareman himself).

dSTAR

simu wrote:

Well, Irish people have managed to be successful all over the English-speaking world so it's not much of an issue really.

I would expect that with the sheer amount of people that have left Irish shores that some of them would eventually become successful.

My experience of Irish people in the United States and Australia (in recent times) is that many have indeed climbed the ladders of success. But they did this by adapting to their new country and by becoming 'young Americans' or 'new Australians'.

Not so in England. English cities are littered with Irish vagrants and derelicts who have become victims of some imaginary oppressor. They see themselves as being different and not being part of the geographic location known as the British Isles.

Last night there was an Australian show called the 'Footy Show' which was broadcast live from London. It was interesting to see how Aussies and 'Poms' took the pish out of each others accents. All in good fun. Why do Irish people feel inferior to English people. I think that the post colonial condition has been taken too far.

It made me think about this thread and how Irish people are either so self conscious of their accents that it ends up in some pretentious D4 accent or at the same time unaware about how they speak to the extent that it is indeciperable to other english speakers.

Maybe we are witnessing a kind homogenization of the way english is spoken in Ireland. In Australia for example you cannot tell a person from Perth to a person from Adelaide even though they are thousands of kilometers apart.

In England the South East of England accent seems to be the predominant accent which has taken over a whole swathe of the country beyond the SE. Maybe some linguists can chime in and let us know what this 'homogenization' of accents is called...

Eoin

dSTAR wrote:

or even Colin Farrell (who has a bit of a bad boy charm with matching accent!).

He is the worst offender of them all! The matching bad boy accent is totally put on, and is not consistent. Strangely enough, his accent is a lot more neutral when on an Irish television programme.

dSTAR

Hey Eoin,

Funny you say that. I though his role inthe film Intermission depicted Dublin scumbag parlance so well but at the same time appearances on shows such as the Late Late Show he comes across as chamelion like with a bashful Dublin accent which a lot more easy on the ear.

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,

Declan