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Nobody Pronounces the 'B' in 'Debt'

merriam-webster.com

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

#31

Post by jjk166 »

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 that 'dette' is unrelated, they very clearly state that it comes from the latin 'debitum' from which the word debit also originates. But while debt descends from debitum, it is a different word. A word pronounced /dEt/ was in common use for centuries without ever having a b in it.

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

#32

Post by toxik »

timonoko wrote: post #8
ncmncm wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anybody who knows won't.

Me knows, but I wont. Some bulgarian innkeeper will not understands any detts . But insists on me paying my deBts with special emphasis on "B".

I wouldn’t even try to use that word. I find that I can only speak as well as I write when I talk to near native speakers… I’d just say I want to pay or something

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

#33

Post by kwhitefoot »

robbedpeter wrote: post #10
ncmncm wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

Drawring lol. That r just magically appears after ahh or ohh, and almost everyone is shocked when you point it out.

It varies. My pronunciation of drawing definitely does not include an r.

Perhaps it has changed over the last 65 years of my life. Or it is a regional pronunciation.

I suspect that more young people include the r.

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

#34

Post by brotherofsteel »

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…

>I'm terribly afraid everybody will learn the wrong way of saying it, and the correct way will go extinct.

Is that really so bad?

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

#35

Post by pm215 »

wazari972 wrote: post #9
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.

Native French speaker here, same, I woulnd't pronounce "debt" the same way I would pronounce "dette" in French, and likewise for "doubt", which would turn in French "doute" ...

The difference between 'doubt' and 'doute' is the vowel sound, not a presence/absence of 'b'. 'debt' and 'dette' don't sound quite identical to me (as a native English speaker and learner of French) but they're very close and the difference isn't that there's a 'b' sound in there. Maybe it's that French 't' is slightly different.

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

#36

Post by kwhitefoot »

boondaburrah wrote: post #19
ncmncm wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There very much is a 't' sound in 'often,' but it depends on how you talk (whether or not there was before, language changes). If you're saying native speakers are saying it wrong, then I don't know what to tell you.

I would only pronounce the t when emphasizing the word.

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

#39

Post by kreeben »

brotherofsteel wrote: post #34
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…

>I'm terribly afraid everybody will learn the wrong way of saying it, and the correct way will go extinct. Is that really so bad?

The correct way is more aesthetic.

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

#40

Post by boondaburrah »

robbedpeter wrote: post #10
ncmncm wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

Drawring lol. That r just magically appears after ahh or ohh, and almost everyone is shocked when you point it out.

Ah yeah the boston 'r' will do the same thing - appearing as needed to separate two vowels.
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