I often hear people consistently pronounce “the” as thee regardless of the sentence context. I make a point to correct my relative’s children and teach them the simple rule. I’m not sure why grade school teachers aren’t correcting this error in the classroom? It’s often obvivous that the same children haven’t been taught to correctly use “a” and “an”. These simple concepts were rigorously taught in my early school years. I attended first through third grade in Massachusetts and 4th grade - college in Arkansas. Misusing “a” and “an” would often cost points on papers submitted in school.
I’m especially curious if non-native speakers are taught these rules in their English classes?
[SPOILER]Pronounce it “thee” if the next word starts with a vowel sound.
Pronounce it “thuh” if the next word starts with a consonant sound.
Just like with a versus an, it’s not the first letter of the next word that matters, it’s the first sound. Here are some examples:
When the next word starts with a consonant sound
Did Aardvark bring “thuh” cheese platter?
Where is “thuh” universal remote? (Note that universal starts with a consonant sound: Y.)
When the next word starts with a vowel sound
I prefer “thee” effervescent water.
Did Squiggly get “thee” MRI? (Note that MRI starts with a vowel sound: E.)
I’ve never heard of there being one context when you are supposed to pronounce it “thee” and another when you are supposed to pronounce it “thuh”, but I always, always pronounce it “thee”, both when speaking and when reading “in my head”, and do often notice how people on TV and movies seem to almost always pronounce it as “thuh.”
(Oh, and just for the record, if someone IRL “corrected” me on how to “correctly” pronounce “the”, I would explicitly tell them to go fuck themselves.)
Never heard of this rule. In Britain most people say ‘thuh’ and a minority say ‘thee’.
I am more familiar with the difference between vocative thee and thou.
UK here, I don’t have any hard and fast rule regarding when to use either version. I reckon I mostly use the “thee” form when using it for emphasis.
i.e. “this is, without doubt, theeeeee greatest bowl of cornflakes I have ever tasted”
I would never correct an adult’s speech. That would be rude and inappropriate.
We teach children many, many life & social lessons. Don’t chew with your mouth open. Put your fork down while chewing. Correct pronunciation and spelling are certainly life lessons that every child needs. I’ve taught several cousins their multiplication tables before they entered third grade. I make a game out of it. It’s a skill they’ll use for the rest of their life.
My teachers had enough of a job trying to get us to pronounce the different versions of “th”. I don’t know what does the OP mean by the specific spellings chosen, but I’m reasonably sure we weren’t taught different pronunciations of “the” based on the first phoneme of the next word.
It is telling that the source was “Grammar Girl”, a podcast I actually listen to every so often and enjoy, and that she had been unaware of “the rule” and both had been doing it “wrong” and still getting it “wrong” sometimes.
The grammar prescriptivist/descriptivist balance is contentious enough in cases where there are clearly different words being used, and that applies to things like the “a”/“an” rules, and adverb usage. In that debate I tend slightly towards the prescriptivist side of the balance, particularly in writing (but a bit less so in spoken conversation). In cases of different pronunciations of the same word? Prescriptivism clearly loses out to descriptivism.
This BBC learning bit (transcript) is interesting and notes that the “rule” applies to cases in which “the” is not stressed and the
This is the first time I’ve heard the rule, but when I tried saying a few words it seems that I do follow it. (I live in the UK for reference.)
I think we were taught about ‘a’ and ‘an’, but only for the purpose of writing, and the only times I’ve seen a native speaker get it wrong was because they had been taught to use ‘an’ before a vowel, instead of before a vowel sound.
I was never taught this as a rule (and I take the liberty of doubting that an explicit “rule” as such actually exists). I do tend to pronounce “the” in the ways described. Not because I’m following a rule, but just because those are the pronunciations that seem natural.
As noted by others, you can also use the pronunciation “thee” for emphasis, even before a consonant, i.e., This is not just a message board, it’s THEE message board.
Southern Ontario here, and I’ve never heard of this rule, though I have heard of ‘a’ versus ‘an’. If anything, I use ‘three’ when the word is stressed, and ‘thuh’ when it isn’t.
Minnesotan here. I never heard that as being a rule like “a” and “an” which we were taught very early on. After reading the OP I tested myself and found that I follow the rule without even having to try. Must be something that comes naturally when speaking.
Is this a real rule? Or one subset of teaching the English Language in the USA? Can you cite this is the “correct” way? I have my doubts this is real and you and some others were just taught differently then many of the rest of us.
