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How do you say "sixth"?

Sax

08:16 / 10.09.04

Do you say siksth?

Or do you say sikth?

pointless and uncalled for

08:26 / 10.09.04

I'm a lazy linguist (although cunning at times) and tend more often to say six instead. Contextually it gets parsed the right way.

Loomis

08:39 / 10.09.04

Is this a trick question? I say the first option, and I always thought that it was agreed to be the correct one. Is that not the case? I thought "sikth" was only used for comedy purposes by tv characters with speech impediments.

Kit-Cat Club

08:43 / 10.09.04

No, it's used by lots of people who talk quickly and habitually slur syllables together... such as a considerable proportion of the English population (especially in the SE) I would automatically say that I say 'siksth', but I couldn't swear that I never ever said the other one...

Cloned Christ on a HoverDonkey

08:46 / 10.09.04

It's definitely 'sicks-th', as in the number six followed swiftly by a clearly enunciated 'th'.

Jack Vincennes

08:51 / 10.09.04

Likewise -although I don't think it sounds so much like 'sikth' as 'six' followed by a glottal stop. Not sure though because I gave up saying 'I've never seen The Sixth Sense' to myself when I decided sitting in the flat muttering to myself was not how I wanted the day to go.

Jack Vincennes

08:54 / 10.09.04

Likewise there referred to Kit-Cat's post. I should think faster...

Squirmelia

09:05 / 10.09.04

I think I say "sikth". Oh my. Maybe I'll just try to avoid saying the word ever again and hold up 6 fingers instead.

Unencumbered

09:11 / 10.09.04

I say siksth, except when speaking quickly. Try pronouncing it this way while saying 'the sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick' and it really slows you down.

_Boboss

09:20 / 10.09.04

both are fine. anyone who is bothered by a preference either way, is a freak.

Axolotl

09:21 / 10.09.04

I'm an uncouth mumbling "sikth"-sayer. The shame, the shame.
I hate my accent; I find if I talk naturally I have the horrible estuary english accent, but if I try and avoid that I end up sounding like a 1950s BBC newsreader. *sigh*

Sax

09:49 / 10.09.04

I'm a freak, I admit it.

I've always said "siksth", but more and more I've noticed that people say "sikth" - especially TV newsreaders. Which made me wonder if it was a regional thing or a morphing of spoken English.

Ariadne

10:10 / 10.09.04

People are looking at me oddly as I mumble to myself. I think I saw siksth. Yes, definitely. Or maybe half way in between. Or maybe that's cause I'm whispering to myself.
Maybe I'll shut up.

Sax

10:49 / 10.09.04

They probably just think you're sitting there softly muttering "Sax".

Again.

Jack The Bodiless

11:22 / 10.09.04

Ah, but as more and more of us sickth people crop up like tiny rory calhouns all over the place, it is you sicks people who will be jeered, then pelted with rotten vegetables, then finally STONED TO DEATH, as the wonderful process of linguistic evolution makes monkeys of you all.

Monkeys, you say?

I say both depending on whether I feel proper or not. When I was a kid I pronounced th like f so I used to say sickf. I never talk about monkeys.

Triplets

15:11 / 10.09.04

Nice lifp, Anna

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