Dis, Dat, and Dose

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hello, my name is Mary Poizel, and I live in the Dalles, Oregon.

And I have issue with people saying this, that, them, their, those, instead of this, that, them, their, and those.

And I was hoping you could give me some input.

I don’t think it’s regional or cultural, because I hear this from a broad range of people on TV programs, on the radio, and popping out of the mouth of people who sound well-educated in the rest of their conversation.

It’s just driving me crazy. I hope you can help me.

Well, Mary, there’s a lot to unpack there. Do you feel better getting it off your chest?

Yes, I do.

Oh, good. Well, thanks for calling.

Glad to help. You know, let’s get to the bottom of this real quick.

It is actually regional. It turns out that this is really common in New York City, Philadelphia, all around the Great Lakes, particularly Chicago, New Orleans, and in the speech of African Americans.

I mean, we are talking probably at least a third of Americans pronounce the words like these and that as d’s and dat.

And some of them don’t even know they’re doing it.

The second thing to tell you is it’s incredibly common in English as a whole.

We find this in Scotland and Ireland and London because there’s this physical cause.

Say the word these and you can feel your tongue vibrating on your teeth.

We’ll just call it a voice TH, okay?

And if you now do Ds, and the D sound is on your palate, just a little bit behind your teeth.

The difference of where your tongue is, is a centimeter or two.

It is a micro distance.

It’s really common for these sounds to alternate and to swap out for each other.

Not only in English, in Spanish.

And tons of other languages as well.

So there’s like this mechanical reason that somebody might do that.

And then you learn that pronunciation from the people around you.

And there’s another thing happening here, too.

We are a country of immigrants, and it turns out that a lot of people who speak languages like Finnish and German, when they try to speak English, it turns out that they probably are going to pronounce words like these and that and them and those as dees and dat and dem and dos.

Just because of the way their mouths are wanting to do Finnish and German, but instead in English, it doesn’t quite work for them.

They bring some of the phonetics over from their home language.

And in English, of course, it’s a very permissive language.

We can understand them without them getting it exactly right.

So there’s no laziness here.

People aren’t necessarily miseducated or uneducated.

I mean, you can go to Chicago to an alderman’s meeting and hear almost everyone in the room using these sounds because it’s ordinary for people from Chicago.

Aha.

So I suppose it’s been there all along and I’ve only just now become aware of it.

And I suppose now that I can understand where it’s coming from, I can turn a deaf ear.

And every time you hear it, it’ll be a little hello from Grant and me.

Yeah.

All right.

Picture is waving.

Well, I certainly do appreciate your input.

And you guys keep up the good work.

Thank you, Mary.

Thanks a lot.

Thanks for calling us.

Take care now, all right?

You too.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Mary’s got a good point.

You see it.

It pops up.

You’ve got a big question.

Where do you go for answers?

You go here.

877-929-9673.

Email words@waywordradio.org.