I say ‘tooth’ with the oooo but also say tuthpaste. Similarly, I say ‘sauce’ like sooorse, but ‘saucepan’ like sospan. Can’t be tamed. Answer from JennyW93 on reddit.com
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Cambridge Dictionary
dictionary.cambridge.org › pronunciation › english › tooth
TOOTH | Pronunciation in English
TOOTH pronunciation. How to say TOOTH. Listen to the audio pronunciation in English. Learn more.
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Reddit
reddit.com › r/nostupidquestions › what is the proper pronunciation of the word “tooth”?
r/NoStupidQuestions on Reddit: What is the proper pronunciation of the word “tooth”?
December 3, 2024 -

Is it two-f or tough (tuth) Or does it depend on your accent? My friends pronounce it different to me but idk if it’s because of where I’m from.

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BBC
bbc.co.uk › programmes › bbc sesh › tuth or tooth?
BBC Wales - BBC Sesh, Tuth or Tooth?
June 4, 2018 - Welsh people pronounce words the right way, alright?
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YouTube
youtube.com › watch
Tuth or Tooth? - YouTube
How do you say tooth, ear, here and heard? Welsh people say them right, ok?
Published   May 9, 2018
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Reddit
reddit.com › r/wales › how do you pronounce tooth?
r/Wales on Reddit: How do you pronounce Tooth?
January 20, 2024 -

I'm from the valleys and have always pronounced it as tuh-th (think of the oo in took, i.e who took the bag?) and taken a fair bit of well humoured hassle among my friends and a few colleagues who say tooth with the long ooo sound.

I also have family, friends and colleagues who pronounce it as I do and not tooth with the long ooo.

I've ever met some mad people who say Tooth but proceed to say tuh-th paste lol.

How do you say it?

Top answer
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I don't know anything about the change in pronunciation of this particular word, so this is just a partial answer.

The more general sound change this is a part of is shortening of /uː/ (from Middle English /oː/) to /ʊ/. This is a sporadic sound change that occurred in RP as well (in other words) and is one of the major sources of /ʊ/ in Modern English. For example, it occurs in foot, soot, good and almost all -ook words.

This sound change shows up in a number of words, but not in tooth, in the 1644 text The English primrose, by Richard Hodges, which is written with diacritics indicating the pronunciation of the words. Hodges writes hood and good as<hꝏ̯d>and <gꝏ̯d>, with a vowel that he describes as a short version of the vowel in words like tooth (which Hodges writes as <tꝏth>). Hodges also has short <ꝏ̯> in <hꝏ̯p>, unlike in modern RP. Hodges is cited in The Cambridge History of the English Language, by Roger Lass (2000), which is cited by the Wiktionary article "Phonological history of English close back vowels: FOOT–STRUT split". Based on the way Hodges and Wallis (another source on early pronunciation) describe the sound of the shortened vowel in words like good, Lass says that it was most likely a short vowel with the quality [u] at this point in time, rather than [ʊ] (Lass 90).

Even though Hodges doesn't provide direct evidence for the pronunciation of tooth with a shortened vowel existing at this time, the presence of the shortening sound change in other words makes it seem plausible that tooth might have had a shortened vowel for people other than Hodges in 1644. However, it's hard to estimate how recently the sound change might have applied, since there isn't anything I know of that would prevent it from occurring more recently.

Sporadic shortening in Early Modern English is also attested in the RP pronunciations of some words that had Middle English /ɛː/, which regularly developed to modern RP /iː/ (as in heath, beneath, mead, wheat), but in some words such as death, breath, dead, thread, threat developed instead to short /ɛ/.

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Wiktionary
en.wiktionary.org › wiki › tooth
tooth - Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Cognate with Scots tuith (“tooth”), North Frisian Ter, tus, täis (“tooth”), Bavarian Zåhn (“tooth”), Dutch tand (“tooth”), German Zahn (“tooth”), Low German Tähn (“tooth”), Luxembourgish Zant (“tooth”), Vilamovian cōn (“tooth”), Yiddish צאָן (tson, “tooth”), Danish, Swedish tand (“tooth”), Faroese tonn (“tooth”), Icelandic tönn (“tooth”), Norwegian Bokmål tann (“tooth”), Norwegian Nynorsk tann, tonn (“tooth”), Welsh dant (“tooth”), Latin dēns (“tooth”), Lithuanian danti̇̀s (“tooth”), Ancient Greek ὀδούς (odoús)/ὀδών (odṓn, “tooth”), Armenian ատամ (atam), Persian دندان (dandân), Sanskrit दत् (dát), दन्त (danta, “tooth”).
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YouTube
youtube.com › watch
How to Pronounce Tooth and Teeth (Voiceless TH sound /θ/) - YouTube
SMART American Accent Training with Speech Modification.Start your free trial of our courses: https://courses.speechmodification.com/Join this channel to get...
Published   April 28, 2022
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YouTube
youtube.com › watch
How to pronounce TOOTH in British English - YouTube
This video shows you how to pronounce TOOTH in British English. Speaker has an accent from Glasgow, Scotland. https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/en...
Published   March 27, 2018
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SpanishDictionary.com
spanishdict.com › spanishdictionary.com › pronunciation › tooth
Tooth | English Pronunciation - SpanishDictionary.com
Pronunciation · Thesaurus · Phrases · US · SpanishDictionary.com Phonetic Alphabet (SPA) tuth · International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) tuθ · English Alphabet (ABC) tooth · UK · SpanishDictionary.com Phonetic Alphabet (SPA) tuth · International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) tuθ ·
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YouTube
youtube.com › cambridge dictionary
How to pronounce tooth | British English and American English pronunciation - YouTube
Learn how to pronounce "tooth" in British English and American English. Hear the pronunciation of the word on its own and in example sentences. Look up the m...
Published   October 29, 2021
Views   2K
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The Guardian
theguardian.com › lifeandstyle › 2011 › apr › 09 › tim-dowling-new-dentist
Tim Dowling: The new dentist | Dentists | The Guardian
June 19, 2018 - "There's no hurry," he says. "But we'll get started on filling that tuth next time." I stare at him. Wouldn't someone have mentioned it in dental school? "You, in the third row – it's pronounced 'tooth'."
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ELSA
elsaspeak.com › en › learn-english › how-to-pronounce › tooth
How to Pronounce TOOTH in American English | ELSA Speak
Practice pronunciation of the word tooth with ELSA advanced technology and say tooth like Americans.
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Pronounce
pronounce.tv › home
Tooth: Pronunciation Mistakes You're Probably Making
April 8, 2024 - Find more tutorials on Youtube ... ‘Tooth‘ correctly. Choose one accent: when you mix multiple accents, it can sometimes confuse you, and not just beginners. So pick one accent (US or UK), perhaps US and stick to it! A few more tips\techniques to improve your pronunciation skills, consider ...
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SkyscraperCity
skyscrapercity.com › home › forums › european forums › uk & ireland architecture forums › projects and construction › birmingham metro area › lunar society
Birmingham Prononciation of 'Year' and 'Tooth' | SkyscraperCity Forum
We do pronounce some words differently, but I dont think there is an right way of pronouncing them. I say "tooth" to rhyme with booth with the emphasis on the "oo", for her it rhymes with rough (almost but not quite) with the emphasis on the ...