Poll: How do you say twat?

[DustyDrB]

Wow. Some people who are apparently hardcore about pronouncing it like "hat" are being total twats (and I said it so it rhymes with swat).

And I will use karate to swat any twat who says the word can never rhyme with what.

 

[Ailia]

I've always said it 'twat', though I've heard a few people using 'twot' before (it confused me immensly the first time).

 

[TwistedEllipses]

Via wikipedia:

Robert Browning famously misused the term in his 1841 poem "Pippa Passes", believing it to be an item of nun's clothing:[2]

Then owls and bats
Cowls and twats
Monks and nuns in a cloister's moods
Adjourn to the oak-stump pantry

Its meaning was in reality the same then as now, Browning's misconception probably having arisen from a line in a 1660 satirical poem, Vanity of Vanities:

They talk't of his having a Cardinalls Hat
They'd send him as soon an Old Nuns Twat

Twats ryhmes with bats. Case closed!

 

[KimberlyGoreHound]

Sometimes I say twat, other times twot, it just depends on my mood. I haven't really given it much thought.

 

[Cheesus333]

"Twot"? People actually say it like that?

I can't really even imagine that as part of a sentence.

 

[Ilikemilkshake]

I really dont understand how anyone could think it was twot...
obviously it rhymes with hat.

 

[Phishfood]

Rhymes with hot. That's how I say it.

So you call people twots? Must sound like a real twat!

OT: Rhymes with hat, if not it really would be twot. I don't even see how that's open to interpretation.

I had the twots the other day..

My money is on rhyming with ducking hat.

 

[Shraggler]

I personally pronounce it as if it rhymes with hat. As far as I understand, it's regional.

And for all the people saying "It's spelt 'at'"...

How do you pronounce swat?

Thank you for posting this distinction.

The English alphabet is incredibly simple, which makes words constructed with it difficult. We do not use diacritics on our letters (save for certain words of different ethno-linguistic origin) so there is no way to tell, at a glance, how a word is pronounced. This is especially true in the case of vowels.

"Sugar" for example is pronounced with a "sh-" sound at the beginning of the word, but it's not indicated as such in the text. Moreover, most of the time, the "u" is pronounced as a short vowel ("uh" instead of "ooh"), and we barely even acknowledge the "a" near the end of the word. It just kind of ends "-gr" not "-gar" or "-gahr". Without any background in the language, sugar would probably be pronounced "soogaar", which is close, but the vowels are too long and the beginning consonant is pronounced incorrectly.

Yeah, I'm a twat.

 

[Brandon237]

Twat, hat, cat.

To be really insulting it must have that 'ah; sound.

 

[funguy2121]

English: rhymes with bat.
American: rhymes with spot.

 

[tahrey]

It's more like saying "twaht"

This may be a dialect thing, but how is that massively different from pronouncing it phonetically just with a slightly longer, breathier "a"?

ah =/= o ... at least as far as I'm aware...

 

[king_katchit]

SNIP

Bravo!

OT: I think generally in the UK it is pronounced with a 'hat' sound, And if you don't like it, we invented the rules, which makes us the umpires!

Game, set and match good sirs!

*Puts on bowler hat*

 

[Spacewolf]

dont think ive ever heard it said as anything other than tw-at, where is it pronounced as tw-ot?

 

[ace_of_something]

I never say it. It's one of those words that makes me feel kind like a goof saying it.
If I DID say it... it would rhyme with hat.

 

[KrubixCube]

I say it somewhere in between the two I think more towards "hat" though. Well done for making me say "twat" about five times out loud though.

 

[Folksoul]

I tend to flip-flop without really meaning to.

 

[GoGrapefruit]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMj7mfla-TA

This should help

Classic

 

[steampunk42]

Tw-"at"

 

[Seabear]

How do I say twat? Frequently, and with venom. Also, to rhyme with hat. It's a very English curse.

QFT.

Immensely satisfying word, whether for stubbing your toe in the dark, calling your dear friend a "daft twat" in the nicest possible way, or, with great venom. It's the swiss army curse!

Also, for media use of the "twot" use, which is just... wrong. Blink 182 "Family Reunion".

 

[Jinnwarior]

i say it as [twɑt], not [twæt], but i know many people use the latter.