“Sixth” Pronounced as “Sikth”

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Augusta calling from Denver.

Hey, Augusta, welcome to the show. What can we do for you?

So one day we were watching a show or something and my boyfriend said, have you ever noticed a lot of British people say six instead of six? And I never had, but of course, since then I noticed that a few times. And it made me start thinking about why that is. And if it’s because it’s easier to say, since sixth is definitely a little awkward to say. So I’ve never heard someone from the U.S. say it this way. So if that is the reason, it’s funny to me that we got our language from the Brits. And we say it the way it’s actually spelled, and they kind of use a shortcut.

So let me make sure that I understand the words and the pronunciations that you’re talking about. So you’re talking about the term that comes after fifth, right? S-I-X.

Right.

S-T-H?

Yeah.

And how does it sound to you when you hear British people pronounce it?

So it’s almost as if it’s spelled S-I-K-T-H.

Okay.

So you’re hearing S-I-K-T-H. And where are you encountering British people? Television shows?

Yeah, mostly in shows.

Yeah.

Like what kind of shows? Are we talking Bridgerton or something like that?

Yes, or even more. More modern shows. Like we were just recently watching Love is Blind UK.

Yeah. I think my wife watches that. It’s very successful here.

So it’s interesting that you’re not hearing it in the United States because it does happen here as well. And you’re absolutely right that that X-T-H in the word sixth, that is known as a consonant cluster, three consonants in a row, is difficult to pronounce. It’s hard to say. And if you look at the history of the spelling of the word, you can see that reflected over the many centuries of the words of history. You can see it reflected in the variety of spellings that were a little more literal. They were transcribing what people said. And you can see that X often disappear or turn into a K or just turn into a hard T or something else.

That said, there are a lot of usage guides that specifically say, don’t, you know, don’t say it with a K sound. Make sure you pronounce that X in there because otherwise you sound uncareful or inattentive to your speech.

I want to address the notion, though, that it might be interesting that the Americans say it one way and the British say another because we got our language from them. And as a matter of fact, they got their language from the same place we got our language. So all of the current dialects of English are descended from the same common roots. And there has never been just one English. So we’re not a child of British English. We are siblings with British English of a previous collection of versions of English. It’s complicated.

That makes sense.

So we’re not. But we do sometimes keep older forms that the modern British English speakers don’t use anymore. Like the way we use got and gotten are different. But anyway, that said, so yeah, you will hear sixth. I don’t know that it’s more common in the UK. I have not come across any pronunciation studies of that, but I do know that it has occurred in Scots English more often such that it’s sometimes recorded in Scots dictionaries as the exact spelling. Not an X, but a K. S-I-K-T-H.

Oh, interesting.

Yeah.

Cool.

So that’s what we know, Augusta. Does that work for you?

Okay.

Yeah.

Thank you so much.

Yeah.

Our pleasure.

Call us again sometime.

Take care of yourself.

Okay.

I appreciate you having me.

Thanks.

Yeah.

Bye-bye.

Thanks.

Bye-bye.

You know, Grant, now she’s got me thinking about how I say that word sixth. And I’m thinking about when I talk about when I was in sixth grade, you know, sometimes it just sounds like sixth grade. You know, there’s that consonant cluster of five consonants there. Sixth grade. And that is literally one of the pronunciations over the many centuries has been where sixth S-I-X-T-H sounds like six S-I-X. Because our teeth and our tongues want to do something different and we have to force them to behave.

Yeah, well, maybe you’re listening as closely to pronunciation as Augusta is. You can call us to talk about pronunciation or any other aspect of language. Give us a call, 877-929-9673.