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Nobody Pronounces the 'B' in 'Debt'

merriam-webster.com

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Re: Nobody Pronounces the 'B' in 'Debt'

#21

Post by jwilk »

ncmncm wrote: post #4
garmaine wrote: post #2

Ummm… I do. It’s not a hard b sound, but it is there. It sort of moves the location of the “t” sound down towards a “b.” It defiantly does not sound like “det”. And I distinctly pronounce the “b” in “plumber” (another example in the article.

We all have our faults. But we don't need to promote them. There is also no "t" sound in "often", never was. Some officious busybody thought "offen" and "oft" ought to be related. so put "often" in a dictionary. Now people who don't know any better pronounce it. But it's rare to find anybody trying, foolishly, to say the "b" in debt and doubt. I doubt anybody tries to pronounce the "l" in "could". That one appears to…

https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/correct-pronun...

> Often has a medial /t/ that, like similar words such has "hasten" and "soften," was once pronounced and is now typically silent.

Re: Nobody Pronounces the 'B' in 'Debt'

#22

Post by srcreigh »

1_player wrote: post #15

Oh this is the place where I can finally rant about _aesthetic_, the favourite word for most music/art/movie content creators I've watched in the 2020s, one everybody mispronounces and reads it as "asthetic" which annoys me to no end, because it is totally WRONG. And I keep hearing it daily, which is maddening. "Ae" is supposed to be one sound, like the vowel sound in "egg". The "a" is silent. I'm terribly afraid eve…

Do you pronounce it ayesthetic?

Re: Nobody Pronounces the 'B' in 'Debt'

#23

Post by dmurray »

1_player wrote: post #15

Oh this is the place where I can finally rant about _aesthetic_, the favourite word for most music/art/movie content creators I've watched in the 2020s, one everybody mispronounces and reads it as "asthetic" which annoys me to no end, because it is totally WRONG. And I keep hearing it daily, which is maddening. "Ae" is supposed to be one sound, like the vowel sound in "egg". The "a" is silent. I'm terribly afraid eve…

In American English, unlike British English, œ and æ have mostly been collapsed into e. Compare encyclopaedia, foetus, faeces, diarrhoea, oestrogen. (But exceptions spelt the same way in both dialects: phoenix, oeconomics).

If you'd like to encourage what you consider the correct pronunciation, I'd suggest favouring the spelling esthetic, which I do see but less commonly.

Re: Nobody Pronounces the 'B' in 'Debt'

#24

Post by srcreigh »

ncmncm wrote: post #7
eozoon wrote: post #6

English is not my first language so I wouldn't presume I know more than people at Merriam Webster - but that sounds iffy to me. Sure, I don't say deb-t, but isn't the b still there as a plosive / stop? If it were just spelt "det" I feel like it'd have a more prominent t sound. It also seems strange to say it would have been better to get rid of it when we definitely need the b in "debit" and "debenture", isn't it bet…

No, there is nothing there at all. If you look on a sonograph, "debt" and "det" sound exactly identical. Anybody who imagines English pronunciation should match spelling can't possibly know much of anything about English. Let's not get started on how many British pronounce "drawing".

English. Emphasis on the ish.

Re: Nobody Pronounces the 'B' in 'Debt'

#25

Post by smartscience »

Kim_Bruning wrote: post #13

Merriam Webster is blaming old school prescriptivists? But I have some doubts. You have the closely related word 'debit' in several languages where you do pronounce the 'b'. I'm surprised they're saying that old english 'dette' is of no relation, but ok then. In the case of 'subtle', the dutch cognate 'subtiel' definitely does pronounce the 'b'.

They claim it's ultimately related to the latin debitum, but the b was lost before being reinserted by prescriptivists later. Not as bad as the s is island, which appears to be based on a false understanding of the etymology https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/island#note-1

Re: Nobody Pronounces the 'B' in 'Debt'

#26

Post by KronisLV »

timonoko wrote: post #3

Nobody in some nobodyland. Majority in the world would. It is safer to pronounce English as it written and just modify on well-known cases. Especially when two non-natives speak two each other. "Fancy" pronunciation can make things impossible, as only native speakers can understand where you are aiming at.

> It is safer to pronounce English as it written and just modify on well-known cases. Especially when two non-natives speak two each other. "Fancy" pronunciation can make things impossible, as only native speakers can understand where you are aiming at.

Heh, this seems like the right thing to do when you think about it. Why should we keep track of some odd rules that only exist for historical reasons and aren't really... you know, written down?

Re: Nobody Pronounces the 'B' in 'Debt'

#27

Post by srcreigh »

ncmncm wrote: post #4
garmaine wrote: post #2

Ummm… I do. It’s not a hard b sound, but it is there. It sort of moves the location of the “t” sound down towards a “b.” It defiantly does not sound like “det”. And I distinctly pronounce the “b” in “plumber” (another example in the article.

We all have our faults. But we don't need to promote them. There is also no "t" sound in "often", never was. Some officious busybody thought "offen" and "oft" ought to be related. so put "often" in a dictionary. Now people who don't know any better pronounce it. But it's rare to find anybody trying, foolishly, to say the "b" in debt and doubt. I doubt anybody tries to pronounce the "l" in "could". That one appears to…

Same with Toronto. It's really more like Turonno

Re: Nobody Pronounces the 'B' in 'Debt'

#28

Post by dmurray »

Kim_Bruning wrote: post #13

Merriam Webster is blaming old school prescriptivists? But I have some doubts. You have the closely related word 'debit' in several languages where you do pronounce the 'b'. I'm surprised they're saying that old english 'dette' is of no relation, but ok then. In the case of 'subtle', the dutch cognate 'subtiel' definitely does pronounce the 'b'.

They're not saying it's of no relation. They're saying something like, "once the language became English, the b was never heard".

This isn't a circular argument or glossing over "what does it mean to be English", because while the line is blurry between Old French and Old English following the Norman invasion of Britain, there's no such link between English and Latin.

Re: Nobody Pronounces the 'B' in 'Debt'

#29

Post by hdjjhhvvhga »

laurent123456 wrote: post #18

English is spoken by more non-native speakers than native, and often they pronounce those letters since they don't know about it. With that in mind, I wonder if the language will eventually evolve to a point where the "b" of "debt" and other silent letters are no longer considered silent.

Yeah, when talking to non-natives I sometimes double-check if they understand words with silent letters/non-obvious pronunciation, but sometimes I just mispronounce them to be better understood, it's faster.
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