Speaking 'properly' or not

[Geoff Bannister]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, Ladi lyndi <ladilyndi at y...> 
wrote:

> Lynn:
> I agree about the "th" as well.  My husband can made the sound if he 
thinks about it and tries.  Usually his "th" sounds like a "d" which 
does make sense given many of the English spellings of Dutch words, 
i.e. Netherlands rather than Nederlands, The Hague rather than Den 
Haag, use the "th" sounds in place of the "d" sound.  While our 
daughter was raised with both languages, her first spoken language was 
Dutch and I'm having the dickens of a time getting her to say "th".  

Geoff:
Interestingly, I used to teach in South-west London where a lot of the 
families had moved into an overspill estate from Cockney areas and the 
pupils still spoke with what is sometimes jokingly called a "Sarf 
Lunnon" accent.

As a result, I would often get a student replacing a "th" with an "f" 
and saying, for example, "firsty" for "thirsty", "farzend" 
for "thousand", "fick" for "thick" and so on.

I used to say to my pupils that in order to pronounce the words 
properly, I would allow them as a privilege to stick their tongues out 
at me. Because that will get the "th" sound correct; it then only 
remains to know whether to use this unvoiced or voiced and it certainly 
avoids the "z" or "d" which often betrays a continental speaker.