Often

Pirates

Hypercorrection.

People think that not pronouncing the "T" is similar to pronouncing "butter" as "budda," so "correct" themselves. Not pronouncing the "T" is perceived as casual, lazy, or uneducated.

You mean “ piraes”.

OP = William Safire

Seek help, OP.

Stealth anti-trans thread

I blame social media for this outrage.

There is a scene in the miniseries "The 2 Mrs. Grenville's" when Anne Woodward meets her MIL and his family. After she leaves, the mom and his sisters start trashing Anne Woodward. The 1 sister says. "You can tell she's common because she pronounces the "T" in often.

'Not pronouncing the "T" is perceived as casual, lazy, or uneducated.'

My question is when and why did it happen? You never ever before pronounced the T. As I said it's not pronounced in a 1970 dictionary. I guess now I'll just say sofTen.

Another beef I have is that I offen hear young people say which is truly surprising is 'Without further ado.'

I thought this died out with vaudeville.

R9 - And when spelling it out, some of them try to look sophisticated by writing: "Without further adieu"

I blame Gen Zer's too.

OP, language evolves. They used to pronounce protein as "pro-tee-in". Some people used to say "Los Angle Lees". There are many words that have changed pronunciation over the years. For the record, I do not pronounce the T in often, but many many people do.

I never heard protein pronounced at "Pro-tee-in", is that regional? In the Philadelphia area, "Water" is spoken as "wooder". I kept getting called out on it in Myrtle Beach when I was down there for work.

A lawyer from Alabama kept telling me "With that accent, you live in La Jolla??"

[quote] but many many people do.

How often?

Robut.

Yet again: There is just not one way to pronounce every single word in the dictionary. Often pronunciations vary according to region, nationality, class, and other factors.

There's no reason to get hysterical about it unless you're some sort of OCD control freak.

What R2 said. This has been going on for a while now, as documented in H. .W. Fowler's *Modern English Usage* (1926);

[quote]The sounding of the T ... is practiced by two oddly consorted classes: the academic speakers who affect a more precise enunciation than their neighbors ... and the uneasy half-literates who who like to prove they can spell

Doubtless we'll eventually be hearing people say "lisTen" and "fabric sofTener."

Same with soften. But you don’t hear as many people pronounce the T in soften.

What about “a historic …” vs “an historic …”

I alway say a historic …(ie, house, ruling, moment, etc).

I say "an historic"

A historic does not sound proper to me.

If the "H" in historic were silent, as with "herb" in American English, I'd use "an."

However, the "H" is pronounced, so I use "a."

R18 and R19 - When you're saying something like 'historic monument' or 'herb garden,' I think it depends on whether you begin the 'h' word with a vowel sound or not. I tend to say "an 'erb garden" and "an 'istoric monument", especially if I'm speaking quickly. I realize I almost (but maybe not quite) drop the 'h', sliding the words together. The article is naturally 'an' if the following word begins with a vowel sound .

If you fully pronounce the 'h', you'd probably say "a herb garden" and "a historic monument" because the 'h' is a consonant sound. That's my take on it anyway. :)

R20, you got there before me!

I say erb and not herb, thus "an herb"

A egg.

I remember reading that the fruit we now know as 'orange' was originally called 'norange', but, because people heard 'a norange', they naturally thought it was called 'an orange'. Whether this is true or not, it makes a good story.

Equally horrendous, R24 - actually more so because so many people say it: a accident.

Interesting, R25. I hadn’t heard that about the word “orange” before. Here’s more about it, plus lots of other stuff.

That's an interesting article, R27! Thanks for doing the research on that - it's good to know it wasn't just my imagination :)

And yet the "ofTen" people, if they had the language skills to know the word, would pronounce "oftentimes" correctly without the T because their lack of teeth would produce a prolonged squeaky whistle.

What about facade? Is it fuh-sod or fack-aid?

Cool Whip.

[quote]The sounding of the T ... is practiced by two oddly consorted classes: the academic speakers who affect a more precise enunciation than their neighbors ... and the uneasy half-literates who who like to prove they can spell

Haha, these types of threads always remind me of one of my late Mom's favorite object lessons.

[quote]The sounding of the T ... is practiced by two oddly consorted classes: the academic speakers who affect a more precise enunciation than their neighbors ... and the uneasy half-literates who who like to prove they can spell

Haha, these types of threads always make me chuckle because of an old family story my late Mom (a former 1st grade teacher) would tell us.

Growing up in rural Upcountry SC, in the 30s-40s, Mom had a frenemy (is that still a word?) who always went about, putting on airs. One year Frenemy spent the summer in New York. When she returned to SC someone asked her if she likes New York. Drawing herself up and looking down her nose at her fellows, speaking all "proper" she said

[quote][bold]Oooohhh, DOES I!"[/bold]

And that was how Mom taught us kids about overcorrection, arrogance, and swanning.

"Often" with the "t" pronounced, sounds uneducated to me.

But what really gets me, is people pronouncing "picture" as "pitcher".

It makes my skin crawl.

R33 - That's none of your "Bidness"

[quote]pronouncing "picture" as "pitcher".

[quote]It makes my skin crawl.

You're so right, R33. And it's weird and irritating when [allegedly] trained actors use that pronunciation.

I have so many of these in my "Grrrrrrr!!!" file, but here are two:

"Git" vs "Get." As a Southener I've been hit with "git" my entire life. Not to put anything negative on Shannen Doherty at this stage (not like she'll ever see it), but she is THE worst offender. My ears!

Another I've noticed in the last 25 years or so, is that (to my ears) Hispanic/Latino elision of "-ing" to "-een" seemingly has taken over, particularly among white Southern Californians. For example, watch Christina Hall (formerly El Moussa) in her Jacuzzi bath commercials. Every single gerund is pronounced as "een." Bath[italic]een,[/italic] Tak[italic]een,[/italic] Fix[italic]een,[/italic] etc.

A photo of OP has been found.

[quote]Every single gerund is pronounced as "een." Batheen, Takeen, Fixeen, etc.

I am more irritated by the fact that almost NO ONE uses the correct pronoun in front of a gerund3 - it's the possessive form, people.

HIS bathing - NOT HIM bathing

THEIR taking - NOT THEM taking

MY fixing - NOT ME fixing

It's like a record scratch moment every time I hear it.

R35 and R37 How do you feel about the phrase: "I'm fixin' to cum!" ?

And when did everyone start using "went/gone" incorrectly?:

As in for example: "He had went to the store."

R38, I think I'd be burst[italic]een[/italic] out with a fit of laugh[italic]een[/italic] last[italic]een[/italic] til the morn[italic]een[/italic] light.

[quote][R35] and [R37] How do you feel about the phrase: "I'm fixin' to cum!" ?

r37 here - I'm fine with the phrase, but am appalled that you think there is a gerund in that colloquialism.

R39, when I was a teen I was in the car with friends. My friend’s mother, who was haughty, was driving. One of my friends said something like, “I could’ve went with them.”

The mom sucked her teeth and proclaimed, “Could’ve went! You mean could’ve gone!”

Without missing a beat my friend replied, “Either way I would’ve been there.”

To R42, that's an awesome comeback. That would have guaranteed a slap in the face or a hit upside the back of my head.

R13 Some Northern New Jerseyans also say wooder.

I’m from Providence, RI and still call water fountains “bubblers”. Or more phonetically “bubblahs”.

Then again I also say twenty-three skidoo all the time.

The Pirates! The Pirates! Oh Despair!

Affectation by one of those generations with a letter.

Just please, pretty please, do not call California, "Cali". Just....no.

Other than that, meh.

The “t” in often, like the “t” in soften and listen, have, historically, gone through phases where they have been pronounced in standard use. There have been quite a few such cycles for often since late Middle English. Now the cycle is slowly finding its way back to a non-silent t, not without much resistance.

Linguistic change is linguistic change, and sometimes it’s ineluctable.

R45 - That’s “So’s your old man!”

Another is the wrong use of 'grow'. You grow a plant or a tree grows. You don't grow a business. You expand a business or the business grows. The wrong use of grow makes me weep for those younger people who are the custodians of language.

At some point you do have to accept it and just move on. The word "snuck" used to make my teeth hurt, but I slowly realized that I was the one being looked at weirdly for saying "sneaked." I had to give up the ghost and accept defeat.

There are still enough people pronouncing often without the T, so you haven't reached that point yet.

For the record, I gave up on "hanged" years ago.

He wuz hung in the town square.

Not spoken but it’s only in the past few years that I’ve seen paid written as payed. Now I see it all the time. How did this misspelling become so common?

What about he was 'casted' in a play. Don't people know the past of the present cast is cast?

Is it lack of a proper education? Is it language evolving? But 'without further ado' really has me stumped. It's like using the word 'juvenile' to describe a young leading man in a play. The Juvenile as opposed to the Ingenue.

TROUBLE! For R45

I had a department chair at the mediocre college at which I taught, who always wrote the phrase “vis-a-vis” as “visa vie.” That validated what I always thought—she was poorly educated trash.

The sad devolution of the English language. The ones that really get me are “axe” instead of ask, and in sports when players say they played “aggressive” instead of aggressively.

[quote] He wuz hung in the town square.

But he had a micropenis when he moved into the side streets.

[quote]in sports when players say they played “aggressive” instead of aggressively.

I take it you rarely watch player interviews (especially right after a game, when emotions run high and English language filters collapse).

I haven't fingers and toes enough to count the times I've heard "spunt." First time was during the holidays when my brother (a career sports information director/Associate AD at a Florida university) was visiting.

We were watching an ESPN documentary on the phenomenon of the broke-ass irl/multi-millionaire (on paper) athlete. When one guy said "I done spunt it as quick as I had made it," I looked at BigBro, who said only "Yeah, you heard it right." Then he sighed. Deeply.

My heart (and ears) bled for him as a sports comms guy all those years, having to hear every day the dying cries of the English language. I was like, "Sorry, BigBro; I had no idea."

I’ve noticed that some people annunciate the first ‘t’ in the word ‘important’. So it sounds like it’s spelled import-tant.

There's a YouTuber that does that with any word with an internal "t", R62. Wat-ter, bet-ter, etc. It's maddening after a while.

Yes, R62, I was just going to post that.

The T in my "often" is silent.

The T in my "water" is audible.

That's all you need to know.

When people don't pronounce the T in kitten. I hear younger Americans pronounce it ki-un.

[quote]I tend to say "an 'erb garden" and "an 'istoric monument", especially if I'm speaking quickly.

Well, if ever your local community theater does "My Fair Lady," you're a shoe-in for Eliza.

[quote] When people don't pronounce the T in kitten. I hear younger Americans pronounce it ki-un.

Are they from Lonk Guyland?

The "t" in "often" is as necessary as the "p" in " raspberry."

R7- You’re common because you say- The MOM and the sisters instead of the mother and the sisters 👯‍♀️.

r59 Though mostly they're just being ignorant (about a person "playing aggressive"), a legitimate case can be made for "aggressive" in this locution being an objective complement. "Aggressive" here, looked at as an objective complement, describes the subject of the sentence ("the person is playing [to be] aggressive [in his conduct of the game]") rather than modifying the verb (as it would be in "he is playing aggressively").

Whatever the case, "aggressively" is the better, more natural, choice.

[quote]Some Northern New Jerseyans also say wooder.

I always heard it more like "wawter."

[quote]He was hung in the town square.

Which you knew because you were giving him a blowjob beneath one of the town azalea bushes?

My friend used to pronounce shrimp as “srimp”. And said “Walmarts”. Drove me ape shit

R74- My father would say

Saturday Night Alive

The word is "Wooder" spelled "water'

R76 = Edie Brickell