There’s thuh little girl!
I was never taught that and would not consider it an error. And I collect pedantic little usage quirks as a hobby.
While the a/an difference appears in written English, the thee/thuh difference doesn’t. I was never taught it, and hearing it now (with a doctorate in linguistics), it makes me uncomfortable. Squashing native dialects is a squicky subject.
In my own dialect, you’re as likely to pronounce it t’ as anything.
The OP’s link references Merriam Webster as the source of “the rule” but what they say seems more descriptivist than prescriptivist. The BBC one I linked to is also with the intention I think of helping non-native speakers sound more like those who grew up speaking the language by describing how native speakers actually talk, and is not pedantically prescriptivist in its goal.
For whatever reason it seems to be what many of us who grow up speaking English do, not because there is a rule about it but because it just happens to be the way we do it.
I will never live that down, will I?
American here and I was never taught the rule.
Frankly I use them interchangeably depending on what sounds best in the context., and probably with even less thought than that.
Never heard of this, I think it’s becoming clear this “rule” is not universal and certainly doesn’t represent “proper” English.
I went to school in upstate New York, eastern Connecticut, Bergen County, New Jersey, and Broward County, Florida and I was never taught that rule, not even in later English classes where writing was stressed. I just figured out which sounded appropriate on my own.
Darren, do you pronounce the band The The’s name “thee thee”?
I became aware of this dichotomy because of choral singing. A good choral director will take notice of which pronunciation of “the” the text requires and standardise it. Most singers then make a note in their score.
Have heard of the rule, don’t use it. I don’t think it was explicitly taught to me in school. I can barely imagine a native Merliner ever pronouncing a hard E sound even if they were attempting to use the rule. I’m pretty sure in New York it’s always pronounce ‘Duh’, never heard anyone ever say “I’m heading out to ‘dee’ Island”.
That’s exactly like I remember it, I learned it very early when I first took English lessons.
I was taught it in school early on, like second grade (Ohio, 1966). Part of phonics. Exactly as Grammar Girl explains it. I assumed it was universal and it’s surprising to find that it isn’t.
This isn’t grammar and it isn’t really a prescriptivist matter. It’s meant for ease of pronunciation and flow in connected speech. It’s simply to make it easier for you, the speaker. Pretty much all languages make a difference between isolated words and the flow of connected speech. Sound changes caused by contact with an adjacent sound are called sandhi.
Sandhi is Sanskrit for ‘putting together’, cognate of “synthesis.” Sanskrit was the first language where scholars described these changes systematically, so they get to name it.
Like others, I’ve never heard of this so-called “rule.”
I chose other, because I was taught this in school, but I do not do it now.
[quote=“araminty, post:29, topic:799359”]
I became aware of this dichotomy because of choral singing. A good choral director will take notice of which pronunciation of “the” the text requires and standardise it.QUOTE]
^This.
Well, that explains it. In my Catholic school we all had to learn choir singing for Mass during schooldays.
Seems like around here, the common pronunciation sounds more like “theh”, which serves all purposes. When the noun begins with a vowel, the “-e” often just gets swallowed up in the vowel.
We may have been taught the rule in school, but it has been so long, and I have already forgotten more than I ever knew.
Chicago too . “Dee Bears”? No.
I’ve heard of this “rule,” but it’s not any real sort of rule. Yeah, I grew up being taught it. However, when people use “thuh” and “thee” pronunciations is not so much based on pronunciation of the next word in question most of the time in spontaneous speech. “Thee” tends to be used for emphasis and hesitated speech. (Like, “I’m going to theeeeee … theeeeee … uh, … theeeee store.”) I’ll try to find a cite on that. I remember hearing a long interview with a linguist about this on NPR about a decade back.
But, yes, I do tend to pronounce it “thee” before vowel sounds, and “thuh” otherwise, but it’s not at all completely consistent.