In England we get the word think pronounced as 'fink' and thought as 'fort'?

Question

I would have fort that finking about this may stop these aberations to english happening? ( TO THE EDUCATED ITS LIKE GRATING FINGER NAILS ON A CHALK BOARD) I notice these people are quite capable of saying THATcorrectly or THEIR or THEY. When it comes to THOUGHT and THINK 'everfink ' it's f'ortless'?
I predict it will eventually become part of our vocabulary because it is so prevalent, and will find its way into the oxford english dictionary. God forbid it PLEASE!
I put this question on here before but under a different HEADING. This time I am hoping for some more comment under this heading.

Answer 1

They do sound similar, but some people will always say "fink" and "fort" and others will always say "think" and "thought".

Just say it the proper way and I suppose you'll have to get used to it unless you're willing to start a huge campaign against it or something.

Answer 2

Well, as a midlander it's definately somefink i've noticed too me duck, and 'owever much it grates am afraid i may ave sum bad noos fer ya. Fink and Fort ave bin around for a long long time, and they won't be going away, but really doubt that your fears that the bods at OED will admit them anytime soon are founded. Seems to me that pronunciation and regional dialect are separate issues from new meanings to existing words (e.g. wicked, sick etc) or new words entirely (e.g. chav, bling etc).
The facts are that English (UK) is an evolving language and for a small place we have a great deal of regional linguistic variety. Gone are the days when we had a nice soothing middle class beeb voice on the wireless to demonstrate how english should be spoken, instead we're in a world where people wnt 2 say as mch as poss in a 150 char txt msg 2 sav aving to snd 2 mssgs. We're also an increasingly multicultural society.
I'd suggest that these factors alone pretty much inevitably mean that the english of 200 years hence will be as alien to us as the english of Chaucer is today. In fact i'd go one step further than that and say that even locally "english" is already becoming alien to me because only a few weeks ago i was on a bus with a few school kids, and i can honestly say i couldn't understand a word they were saying!
English, even in the form to which you are accustomed is conglomerate of latin, norse, saxon, german and french and the truest known versions of any native form of british are in fact welsh, cornsh and bretton.
I suppose the point i'm trying to make is that english won't stop evolving except perhaps within the upper classes of society (irony here being that english is traditionally a low language and french was the language of court), so feel free to campaign for diction and to frown at a split infintive, however "fink" and "fort" will still be being used long after we're both digging up daisies. Best advice i can give is bristle inwardly, to learn welsh and to accept the inevitable.
My sympathies to all english teachers on this one!

Answer 3

I fink u shud ax somebody else, n stop gerrin at us inglish, peple ceep calling us chavs. Jus cus I gorra ton of bling roun mi neck don meen im a chav.

I can't keep it up, its too hard trying to type like that, I can't understand why they do it, text talk gets me angry as well, using a computer you have all the keys in front of you and I cannot see any need to shorten words as they do. There is one that is regional to Manchester, UK, an example is: "can yous do that." Pronounced "use" If you visit somebody in Middleton just outside Manchester, you might get the host saying "Come in sidown I'll just put t' kekkle on for a cuppa". Meaning of course she will put the kettle on to boil for a cup of tea.

Answer 4

Estuary English is becoming mainstream - its the medias idea of "yoof culture". Its a symptom of a youth oriented society where maturity is square and anyone over the age of 30 is marginalised. Correct your own children so they know the value of the english language - they are the most important! Its common up here in scotland now and I hate it too although I enjoy listening to regional accents.

Answer 5

Clearly there are regional variations to pronunciation. It's ow we arroy'ved at the English langwige in th' furse playse, dowe nokkit!

I can't quite see the OED putting these things into their main work - except, perhaps, as a part of the pronunciation guide (which would be nice to see, as at the moment it is all garnered in RP- Received Pronunciation - which less than 5% of the country actually speak).

Please lets not kill or mono-culturize the language! It is trying to make one version of it 'correct' that kills it - look at the death of Latin, and the failure of Esperanto to catch on!

Answer 6

I pronounce it the correct way, as opposed to my father:
"I fink that the perfickt fing was everyfink I wanted. I fort vat it was anyway."
(I think that the perfect thing was everything I wanted. I thought that it was anyway).
I don't want it to go in the dictionary either. They even added the words "chav" and "bling", why?

Answer 7

There's a lot of this around, and it's only getting worse.

The one which really makes me cringe is "should of" and "would of". This comes directly from the crappy pronunciation of most of today's schoolkids, from whose mouths the words "have" and "of" are almost identical.

My husband says this is the evolution of the language. I think it's sloppy education and declining standards. Sadly, I think he's winning the argument.

Answer 8

I don't think the English dictionary would ever publish it, but it is inevitable that every language/country will have abbreviations and slang.

Answer 9

well its the 21st century
ur soundin like someone who could be the oldest teacher of a grammer skwl
i FINK ur rong lol
nyway its nt jst england

Answer 10

i cant make comments about fink and fort how we talk here is no better (owt ,nowt , intit) so i best just keep me trap shut . oh and BTW the one that annoys me is chimbley