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Nobody Pronounces the 'B' in 'Debt'

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

#291

Post by CRConrad »

johtela wrote: post #16

We Finns especially struggle with this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxxWwdeGz1Q

Ah, Ismo; perhaps my favourite Finnish stand-up comedian. (Ali Jahangiri may be second.)

Yes, I can confirm [1] that Finns often struggle with 'b'. An IME very common example: The word "pub" for a drinking establishment has been loaned as-is into Finnish. But the expression "Let's go to the pub" is, I think more often than not, rendered as "Mennään buppiin".

As I understand it, this is because Finns can pronounce the letter 'b' (even though it isn't natively used in the Finnish language), but for many (most?) it takes quite a bit of concentration and leads to some amount of nervous tension. So when you see one coming -- i.e. having just decided that you're going to say "pub" -- you prepare, tense up... And release it too early, at the start of the word (no wonder, since it starts with the treacherously similar letter 'p'). Then, having blown all your tense preparation already (and perhaps just jumbling it up with the other consonant you also had prepared to pronounce), the end of the word comes out as the (again, treacherously similar) letter 'p'.

No biggie, but definitely still a little funny. (At least to me. Sorry.)

___

[1]: Foreigner, but since last spring lived longer (26 years) in Finland than in any other country.

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

#293

Post by CRConrad »

mfontani wrote: post #114

> English has not managed to shed its own. The language suffers similarly (and for the same reason) with the silent letters in doubt, plumber, subtle, indict, and island. I'm confused. Which letter is silent in "plumber"?

> I'm confused. Which letter is silent in "plumber"?

I was taught it's pronounced "plummer". So, the 'b'.

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

#295

Post by CRConrad »

hypertele-Xii wrote: post #129
housecarpenter wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

English doesn't tolerate word-final -mb. It's always pronounced as -m, and the -b isn't pronounced when a suffix is added either. Other examples: dumb, tomb, comb, womb, numb, thumb, catacomb, Coulomb. All of these have a silent B.

In most of these cases the final B is itself silent but elongates the previous wovel for me. "dumb" is pronounced longer than "dum", and it's the U that gets elongated. The difference is subtle, but my native tongue has "long wovels" so I'm trained to detect the difference.

Paljon suomalaisia täällä?

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

#296

Post by [deleted] »

neutronicus wrote: post #205
napsterbr wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Non-native speaker as well. I recently noticed the "b" is supposed to be silent, but then every time I say "debt" without the "b", phonetically I'm saying the same as "that". They sound the same to me, at least. This is probably related to the fact that "bad" and "bed" sound exactly the same to me.

Related, yes, but the "th" in "that" should sound different (tongue touching edges of both top and bottom teeth, extending just past) from the "d" in "debt" (tongue touching roof of mouth just behind front teeth) The vowels are tougher, though. I didn't appreciate how many different vowels there are in English until I married a woman whose native language doesn't have most of them (Hebrew doesn't have the "a" in "bad…

[deleted]

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

#297

Post by Tagbert »

tsimionescu wrote: post #228
pessimizer wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pronouncing the 'b' in debt is just about impossible for anyone with an intelligible English accent. You have to shove a vowel in there which would likely result in 'debit', a different but related word that could create potential subtle and disastrous misunderstandings. Even if it were non-native speaker saying 'debit' when they meant 'debt' to another non-native speaker. Maybe it'd be better to spell it 'degt'. Tho…

Native English speakers can pronounce the unvoiced version in "kept", is it really hard to replace the voiceless 'p' with a voiced 'b'? For what it's worth, "bt" is not a common combination in my native Romanian either, but it is not hard to pronounce.

Yes, it is harder to handle the transition of voiced B to unvoiced T than it is to handle the transition from unvoiced P to unvoiced T. If you try to voice the B, you will likely end up with a voiced D at the end “Debd”.

It can be done with lots of practice but native speakers don’t normally do this.

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

#298

Post by CRConrad »

brabel wrote: post #199
jdminhbg wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 'r' and 'o' are transposed: it's pronounced 'iorn.'

According to this[1], that's only in the USA... British English appears to drop the 'r' entirely (that's why I never hear it as I've lived in Europe and Australia)... and the American pronounciation seems so odd, is there any other word where the 'r' and the vowel are swapped like that? I know only one in British/Australian with "centre" being pronounced "center", but can't think of any others. [1] https://dictionary…

> British English appears to drop the 'r' entirely

Yeah, but the Brits make up for that by stuffing a lot of extraneous 'r's in between other words.

(TBF, that's a kind of sensible simplification of pronunciation: it's used when one word ends and the next starts with a wovel, to ease the transition.)

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

#299

Post by rossitter »

vehemenz wrote: post #179
housecarpenter wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The new pronunciations seem conventional enough now, although "offen/often" can go either way, and I can't say I've ever heard anyone pronounce "tortoise" in a newer way. Is it supposed to sound like the end of "turquoise?"

> Is it supposed to sound like the end of "turquoise?"

Yes, though some speakers use an S rather than a Z sound (think "choice").

I have only heard these pronunciations from British speakers.

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

#300

Post by Tagbert »

tsimionescu wrote: post #232
scatters wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's impossible in English though; 'b' is pronounced as a plosive, blowing through the lips as they open, while 't' is produced by tapping the tongue on the palate with lips open. So there is an interval between the 'p' and 't' which must be occupied by a vowel, typically a schwa. 'pth' is different because the same stream of air can be used for both consonants, with the tongue contacting the teeth just as the lips…

So how do you pronounce "kept" then?

I think _scatters_ meant “bt” that combination is difficult to produce without introducing an additional vowel. The “pt” is easier.
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