191–200 of 338 posts
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> From Middle English dette , dett , borrowed from Old French dete It seems to.
but wouldn't that Old French go back to a Latin root?
English is sometimes closer to Latin than French, e.g. address ("ad" + "directiare") vs adresse in French
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.
It's happened again and again with other words. "often" (older pronunciation: "offen"), "Anthony" (older pronunciation: "Antony") and "tortoise" (older pronunciation: "tortuss") are examples where the spelling pronunciation still hasn't totally won out. Words where the spelling pronunciation has reached fixation include "falcon" (older pronunciation: "fawken"), "reptile" (older pronunciation: "reptil"), "sphere" (old…
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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.
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Maybe some accents don't pronounce the b at all, but its presence definitely affects how I pronounce the word, I'm sure I'm not alone in this either. The difference is that my lips touch and close when pronouncing "debt", while they stay entirely open if pronouncing "det" (e.g. in "determined"). The change of airflow imparts a soft "peh" before the "t", making the word sound like a softer form of "dept" rather than i…
I'm from New England. I pronounce both det and debt exactly the same. As for debt versus determined. Those are both the same except the vowel is slightly different. debt like head vs determined like head or hit But I couldn't even hear how to put a "puh" sound in the word
What M-W attributes to "lexical meddlers" is almost certainly the result of the very common practice of borrowing latin words, and, when the word is in common use, abbreviating it. Originally the latin word would have always been pronounced "debitum" when read, even if abbreviated "debt." So the b certainly was pronounced. It just wasn't English to begin with. I work in old manuscripts, and this practice is very comm…
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I find that in the past few years I encounter more people (native English speakers) who intentionally pronounce the T in often. I notice that several are NPR correspondents, which makes me think some are saying it to "sound smart". It's funny, really.
> some are saying it to "sound smart". It's funny, really. You're implying that traditional, complex, and arbitrary pronounciations should be considered "smarter" than logical, simpler, and hence modern ones because...? Pronounciation is a inherently classist concept; the harder you make it, the more you entrench classism and intolerance into society. Regardless of the motivation for such correspondents to use a mode…
"I personally would applaud it as progress"
One man's progress is another man's regress. Maybe it's the result of the "Hooked on Phonics" generation having grown up.
The more I've embraced audio books and podcasts, the more I'm aware that I've been mispronouncing words. Probably. It's been kinda crazy. So much so I've decided I should start journaling about it. New Year's Resolution style decided, aka aspirational. Not just the usual dialect stuff, like British vs American variations for aluminum. But easy to miss stuff like which syllable gets emphasis, hard vs soft 'ch', and so…
> But easy to miss stuff like which syllable gets emphasis... here's a fun one: juice VS jews. As a non-native speaker, I am not sure these are prounounced differently enough you can confidently say which one is being said when there's no context to guess it... I guess "jews" just gets a longer vowel?
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I had the same question :D from other comments, it seems a bit controversial, no? Another one I, as a non native speaker, find odd, is "iron". People just say it as "ion", dropping the 'r', right?? At least that's what I hear.
The 'r' and 'o' are transposed: it's pronounced 'iorn.'
[1] https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/iron
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I'm from New England. I pronounce both det and debt exactly the same. As for debt versus determined. Those are both the same except the vowel is slightly different. debt like head vs determined like head or hit But I couldn't even hear how to put a "puh" sound in the word
I'm also from New England and pronounce it differently, note that the difference is outrageously slight... "debt" is ever-so slightly longer than "det"... best I can place it is that "debt" is pronounced further back in my mouth and "det" is more toothy.
A "b" sound is very distinct in English, involving a closing of the lips.
If "debt" were instead spelled "deht" (and pronounced exactly the same), readers would claim that they "pronounce the h".