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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.
Learned something new today =)
... you aren't supposed to pronounce b in debt? What? TIL
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.
While I probably learned this in school, I apparently forgot and have been semi-pronouncing the b (not sure how to call it, it’s "semi-silent"?) for many years now.
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'.
Did you mean “douBts”?
As a non-native english speaker (french), I was pronouncing those words wrong I guess: debt, doubt, plumber, subtle, indict, and island
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'.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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…
In other examples, the prominent “t” sounds and the vowel seems to vary based on emphasis. Compare:
1. Marriage? We only just met yesterday!
2. I’m not really sure, I think I met him four or five years ago.
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…
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…
It's not that simple, for starters 'the a is silent' isn't really right, because it's just a modern rendering of æ, there is no 'a' (or 'e') really. Secondly, æ pronunciation differs depending on etymology (here, Latin's borrowing from Greek). Thirdly, the (ancient) Greek pronunciation changed over time anyway. So how far back do you want to go for 'original' and 'correct'?
I don't understand what you're saying. Æ is a medieval innovation, a fancier way of writing the separate letters AE when they occur in sequence. It doesn't differ from a more modern fi ligature in that regard.
(It is a letter in its own right in Old English, but not here.)
> Secondly, æ pronunciation differs depending on etymology (here, Latin's borrowing from Greek).
And this doesn't look right either. Latin has AE where Greek has AI because that is how that vowel (the PRICE vowel in English) was spelled in Latin. Whether the word was borrowed into Latin from Greek or native to Latin makes no difference to the pronunciation.
As I mentioned above, Old English Æ is a different thing with a different pronunciation, but that's not really relevant here because Old English Æ never survives with the modern spelling AE. Compare þæt -> that / æfter -> after / æsc -> ash ......
What would be an example of the pronunciation of AE differing according to the etymology of the words?