Announcers that drop their t's

I agree, regional accents are lovely, but not dropped letters from words.

Poor diction can make it difficult for people with less than perfect hearing . We need the consonants to be sounded or speech becomes intelligible.

Yes that's a very important point Nellie It's not just about correct pronunciation.

Is this the glottal stop? Recall tony blair using it to 'get on down' with the people.

I find that some newsreaders, interviewers etc drop their voices quite frequently and are difficult to hear.

We have subtitles on more and more frequently. Why does everyone mumble so much. ? Grumble grumble....

The other thing that drives me mad is when even quite well spoken announcers say ‘ter’ rather than ‘to’.

I'd like to know who decided that when the word The is followed by a word beginning with a vowel it is no longer pronounced Thee but Tha. Thee end has now become Tha end.

Not all TV newsreaders/presenters/reporters do it but they're definitely on the increase.

What about the dreadful prospect of months of the "withdrawral bill"?

Merlot I have always found that the word The is pronounced Thee before a vowel and Tha before a consonant. Thee egg, but Tha bacon; Thee argument but Tha disagreement. I don't think I've noticed the use of Tha before a vowel. I will start to listen to people more now!

Bill Nighy said it perfectly on Grumpy Old Men a few years ago. 'When will someone have the courage to put a t in bottle ( missing the t's obv)' .Perfect.

There's a difference between an regional accent and lazy speech. The Norfolk dialect has a glottal stop for words such a bottle. But it's not really lazy speech as the vowel before the t is stretched and the glottal stop shuts it up. There's just no way to write it down! ' The' is tha most of the time or shortened a lot to just a th'. The is for people (thee).

I can talk posh when needed - although probably with a touch of an accent - and I think there's a lot to be said for BBC English which everyone can understand. I had problems with a call centre person and had to ask for someone else as I can't understand Geordie. I got the word pet at the end I think, but what she said before then was a mystery!

Perhaps we all could begin to model our speech on the accents used by the Queen, her family and friends in the Crine?

It's always children I think about; if they don't speak properly how can they learn to spell? I once heard a woman, with small children in tow, asking her friend 'Aincha gotcha meet?' Puzzled I eventually worked out that she perhaps meant 'Have you not visited the butcher in order to purchase the main ingredient for your dinner?' How could you unravel and then write down her question?

We all adjust our accents and pronunciation according to our audience without even thinking about it. However, if we are not aware and able to use standard English with (more or less) received pronunciation we are doing ourselves and the English language a disservice. There needs to be a common standard to ensure sense and accuracy. The BBC used to accept responsibility for this but their current PC attempts to put democratisation before maintaining the standards of our common speech has dealt the maintainance of the English language a deadly blow.

I can't understand the odd words emphasised by weather forecasters, as in '... expect more rain IN the afternoon followed by clearer skies ON Monday'. Happens all the time.

I can spell along with the best of them, and I'm sure my accent/way of speaking is one of the most maligned.

Lots of people in the media, especially TV seem to deliberately dumb down their accents with harsh tones and you can tell they are still posh and well educated as they say laarf instead of laugh even if they drop their t's How phoney is that we still have the posh accents with kiddy on regional ones. I would rather have an authentic full posh accent any day personally a million times. Perhaps some presenters just appeal more than others regardless. It cant be easy trying to please everyone and I think they are now under a lot of pressure to do just that nowadays.

I get irritated by the r which is inserted into words such as drawing (drawring) by highly intelligent and otherwise well spoken people in the media.
What irritates fellow gransnetters?

Horatia saying laarf is really common and certainly incorrect.

I think our (my) generation were taught to read and write correctly and find it when others seem unable to treat the language with any respect. My pet hates are the misuse of 'to' and 'too' and 'there' and 'their. But the thing that irritates me the most nowadays is that so many people begin their sentences with the word 'so'. It's particularly noticeable in tv/news/current affairs interviews with educated young people. Just watched young lady being interviewed and literally every sentence started with it. Grr.

My pet hate is "I done it". No no no, you did it".

Well, Esspee...the haitch drives me nuts. It's aitch, aitch, AITCH. Flars for flowers, flower for flour and my pet hate is unrolled R's as in iyon for iron and Iyeland for Ireland.
Don't get me started on 'you know what I mean?'...that's for a new thread! Rant over, feel much better.

Don't get me started on the letter "H" (aitch). No one - but no one - nowadays knows that there are only four words in the entire English Language where "H" is silent, (eg HEIR, HOUR, HONOUR etc). I am sick and tired of hearing "an horrendous ..." "an horrific ....." etc etc - how I wish this could be taught properly nowadays. There is no "HAITCH" at the start & end of my surname, (which is a famous whisky with an added "AITCH" at each end). Just look in the Dictionary to find out the correct pronunciation of the letter "H" - it is definitely AITCH.