8 ms·

It's happened again and again with other words. "often" (older pronunciation: "offen"), "Anthony" (older pronunciation: "Antony") and "tortoise" (older pronunci

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" (older pronunciation: "spear"), "bankrupt" (older pronunciation: "bankrout"), "baptism" (older pronunciation: "baptime"), and "perfect" (older pronunciation: "parfit").

kerneloftruth 5y ago
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.
- yeldarb 5y ago
  If you don’t pronounce the “t” in “often”, how do you pronounce “oft”?
  - jazzyjackson 5y ago
    what kind of hoighty-toighty high-falutin podcast-producer uses the word "oft" in spoken english?
    - selimthegrim 5y ago
      Oft-injured, oft-changing...
  - tdeck 5y ago
    If you don't pronounce the "t" in "listen", how do you pronounce "list"?
- toyg 5y ago
  > 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 modern form, I personally would applaud it as progress, rather than sneering at it.
  - kerneloftruth 5y ago
    Do you pronounce the T in "soften"... maybe you use fabric "sof-ten-er"? Do you have a brush with "bris-tels"? Those would be more inclusive and modern pronunciations? "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.
    - toyg 5y ago
      > Do you pronounce the T in "soften" Yes, but I'm not a native speaker, so I have the privilege of seeing the matter from a more neutral perspective. And what I see, when it comes to pronounciations, is that traditionalism is largely illogical, and maintained simply as a way to signal exclusion. It looks harmless on some levels (i.e. figuring out whether somebody is "local" by the way they pronounce certain topological names), but more often than not it's just used to discriminate between education-rich and education-poor, which then translates into straightforward classism where educational systems are deeply and fundamentally classist (like in England or the US). > Those would be more inclusive and modern pronunciations? Yes. > One man's progress is another man's regress. For sure. After all, a few Catholics were ecstatic when pope Benedict XVI reinstated and promoted saying mass in Latin, effectively trying to revert a century of progress. But fighting actual and logical progress tends to be a losing proposition in the long run, and that particular movement kinda died off quickly.
dkdbejwi383 5y ago
> 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. What are the "new" pronunciations for these? I'm a native speaker and I'd pronounce them the way you've indicated is "older".
- pnut 5y ago
  off-ten An-thunny tor-toys
- SilasX 5y ago
  Yeah and my mom would even scold me, growing up, for pronouncing the t in often.
  - SilasX 5y ago
    Follow-up shower thought: French kids must deal with that on steroids, since a) most terminal consonant letters are silent, and b) it's mandatory to contract <le> to <l'> before a word that stars with a vowel sound. (Used <> as quotation markers just because the other options make it hard to parse.)
- toyg 5y ago
  You must be a posh RP speaker ;-) The way I hear them here in the North (of England), from most common folks, is Of-Ten, An-th-ony (with TH from "the"), and Tor-Toy-s. The T in "often" can be very short but it's definitely there.
  - julesnp 5y ago
    In Canadian English we use the "Antony" and "tortuss" pronunciations as well. For "often", I usually only pronounce the 't' if the word is stressed in the sentence.
  - rossitter 5y ago
    > An-th-ony (with TH from "the") Out of curiosity, is it definitely the voiced TH from "the," rather than the unvoiced TH from "thing?" In the US the spelling pronunciation of Anthony is by far the more common (at least in my experience), but I've never heard it with a voiced TH.
vehemenz 5y ago
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?"
- rossitter 5y ago
  > 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.
  - vehemenz 5y ago
    Even weirder than I thought. I look forward to hearing that from Zoomer college students any time soon then.
onychomys 5y ago
I had a paleontology professor as an undergrad who did reptile as rep-tul (reptle, maybe?), and I kind of loved it. I have no idea where he picked it up, he was from middle America and had a solidly American accent. He was quite old at the time, though, so maybe it was from when he was a kid.
gmuslera 5y ago
Sometimes is easier to transmit how it should really sound using the phonetic alphabet (i.e. ˈtɔrtəs instead of tortoise), but it is a bit harder to write with normal keyboards, and you have to learn how each phoneme sound. Used a lot tophonetics.com when was trying to learn how some texts were supposed to be spoken.
- Ancapistani 5y ago
  Thanks for this link! Growing up somewhere with a strong accent (the Ozarks), I often find myself in the position of knowing exactly the right word to use in a situation, but having never heard it spoken aloud. I've always intended to learn how to use a phonetic alphabet (e.g., IPA) but haven't had an easy path to it.
SamBam 5y ago
> "falcon" (older pronunciation: "fawken") I'm unsure of the difference between the old and new here. Does anyone pronounce the "l" in "falcon" by touching their tongue to the roof of their mouth? I pronounce the "l" similarly in "fault", which is kind of "fau-t". (If you're just referring to the "a" sound, like the a in "fall" vs "fat" then that's a different question, but I think quite regional.)
- xeromal 5y ago
  I have a hard l in my pronunciation of falcon. FAL-CON. I'm from Appalachia though so we tend to have drawn out pronunciations of everything. lol Hell, I'm pretty sure captain falcon in smash brothers also has a hard L in "falcon punch!"
  - Ancapistani 5y ago
    Ozarkian here - we have names where additional syllables are added when we're annoyed with the person. It's "Karen" in normal conversation, but if she brought storebought cookies to the potluck it's "Kar-in-nuh", with the emphasis on the last syllanble. In my head, these are called "spite syllables" :)
    - xeromal 5y ago
      If that doesn't work, you can always whip out the "Bless your heart".
      - Ancapistani 5y ago
        Or "special" - "You didn't miss Karen's special cookies, did ya?" That would usually be coupled with a very veiled reference to how she put in the minimum possible effort while indirectly insulting her entire bloodline: "Oh, don't you just feel for Karen? I don't know how she gets anything done with those kids of hers." Alternatively, if the speaker wants to embarrass her in front of someone with a higher social standing; "Karen, these cookies are just the best thing ever! What do you put in these to make them so good?"
sulam 5y ago
I was with you until tortoise. US English speaker here, but I have literally never heard anyone say “tor-toys”. I think I’d have a serious moment if I did. Is there some link you can throw our way to demonstrate the point? YouTube?
- rossitter 5y ago
  I can say I have heard this from native speakers, but I can't pull up any YouTube links right now. I suspect I've heard it from people who don't always go by the spelling pronunciation, in the same way many people who insert a T sound into often don't always do so. (I include myself in the "variable often" group.) For what it's worth the Oxford English Dictionary lists /ˈtɔːtɔɪs/ ("TAW-toice") and /'tɔːtɔɪz/ ("TAW-toiz") as alternate pronunciations in British English. This appears to be the result of a revision made to the entry sometime after 1989. (The public-facing revision history is not very precise.)
- throwaway8451 5y ago
  Here is an example by the singer / band "Marina and the Diamonds". The song is called "Forget": https://youtu.be/17UL5ks9amY?t=169 https://youtu.be/17UL5ks9amY?t=169
- the_greyd 5y ago
  As someone from India, "tor-toys" is what you would hear from most Indians. For most words of the kind, in india they would be pronounced in exactly the way that would make you remember the spelling of the word (since you are graded on that). I would bet that's the case with most non native speakers.
jhanschoo 5y ago
I think Anthony is a natural English development; Latin has Antonius and french has Antoine. Affricatization is a common process

kerneloftruth 5y ago

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.

yeldarb 5y ago
If you don’t pronounce the “t” in “often”, how do you pronounce “oft”?
- jazzyjackson 5y ago
  what kind of hoighty-toighty high-falutin podcast-producer uses the word "oft" in spoken english?
  - selimthegrim 5y ago
    Oft-injured, oft-changing...
- tdeck 5y ago
  If you don't pronounce the "t" in "listen", how do you pronounce "list"?
toyg 5y ago
> 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 modern form, I personally would applaud it as progress, rather than sneering at it.
- kerneloftruth 5y ago
  Do you pronounce the T in "soften"... maybe you use fabric "sof-ten-er"? Do you have a brush with "bris-tels"? Those would be more inclusive and modern pronunciations? "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.
  - toyg 5y ago
    > Do you pronounce the T in "soften" Yes, but I'm not a native speaker, so I have the privilege of seeing the matter from a more neutral perspective. And what I see, when it comes to pronounciations, is that traditionalism is largely illogical, and maintained simply as a way to signal exclusion. It looks harmless on some levels (i.e. figuring out whether somebody is "local" by the way they pronounce certain topological names), but more often than not it's just used to discriminate between education-rich and education-poor, which then translates into straightforward classism where educational systems are deeply and fundamentally classist (like in England or the US). > Those would be more inclusive and modern pronunciations? Yes. > One man's progress is another man's regress. For sure. After all, a few Catholics were ecstatic when pope Benedict XVI reinstated and promoted saying mass in Latin, effectively trying to revert a century of progress. But fighting actual and logical progress tends to be a losing proposition in the long run, and that particular movement kinda died off quickly.

dkdbejwi383 5y ago

> 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. What are the "new" pronunciations for these? I'm a native speaker and I'd pronounce them the way you've indicated is "older".

pnut 5y ago
off-ten An-thunny tor-toys
SilasX 5y ago
Yeah and my mom would even scold me, growing up, for pronouncing the t in often.
- SilasX 5y ago
  Follow-up shower thought: French kids must deal with that on steroids, since a) most terminal consonant letters are silent, and b) it's mandatory to contract <le> to <l'> before a word that stars with a vowel sound. (Used <> as quotation markers just because the other options make it hard to parse.)
toyg 5y ago
You must be a posh RP speaker ;-) The way I hear them here in the North (of England), from most common folks, is Of-Ten, An-th-ony (with TH from "the"), and Tor-Toy-s. The T in "often" can be very short but it's definitely there.
- julesnp 5y ago
  In Canadian English we use the "Antony" and "tortuss" pronunciations as well. For "often", I usually only pronounce the 't' if the word is stressed in the sentence.
- rossitter 5y ago
  > An-th-ony (with TH from "the") Out of curiosity, is it definitely the voiced TH from "the," rather than the unvoiced TH from "thing?" In the US the spelling pronunciation of Anthony is by far the more common (at least in my experience), but I've never heard it with a voiced TH.

vehemenz 5y ago

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?"

rossitter 5y ago
> 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.
- vehemenz 5y ago
  Even weirder than I thought. I look forward to hearing that from Zoomer college students any time soon then.

onychomys 5y ago

I had a paleontology professor as an undergrad who did reptile as rep-tul (reptle, maybe?), and I kind of loved it. I have no idea where he picked it up, he was from middle America and had a solidly American accent. He was quite old at the time, though, so maybe it was from when he was a kid.

gmuslera 5y ago

Sometimes is easier to transmit how it should really sound using the phonetic alphabet (i.e. ˈtɔrtəs instead of tortoise), but it is a bit harder to write with normal keyboards, and you have to learn how each phoneme sound. Used a lot tophonetics.com when was trying to learn how some texts were supposed to be spoken.

Ancapistani 5y ago
Thanks for this link! Growing up somewhere with a strong accent (the Ozarks), I often find myself in the position of knowing exactly the right word to use in a situation, but having never heard it spoken aloud. I've always intended to learn how to use a phonetic alphabet (e.g., IPA) but haven't had an easy path to it.

SamBam 5y ago

> "falcon" (older pronunciation: "fawken") I'm unsure of the difference between the old and new here. Does anyone pronounce the "l" in "falcon" by touching their tongue to the roof of their mouth? I pronounce the "l" similarly in "fault", which is kind of "fau-t". (If you're just referring to the "a" sound, like the a in "fall" vs "fat" then that's a different question, but I think quite regional.)

xeromal 5y ago
I have a hard l in my pronunciation of falcon. FAL-CON. I'm from Appalachia though so we tend to have drawn out pronunciations of everything. lol Hell, I'm pretty sure captain falcon in smash brothers also has a hard L in "falcon punch!"
- Ancapistani 5y ago
  Ozarkian here - we have names where additional syllables are added when we're annoyed with the person. It's "Karen" in normal conversation, but if she brought storebought cookies to the potluck it's "Kar-in-nuh", with the emphasis on the last syllanble. In my head, these are called "spite syllables" :)
  - xeromal 5y ago
    If that doesn't work, you can always whip out the "Bless your heart".
    - Ancapistani 5y ago
      Or "special" - "You didn't miss Karen's special cookies, did ya?" That would usually be coupled with a very veiled reference to how she put in the minimum possible effort while indirectly insulting her entire bloodline: "Oh, don't you just feel for Karen? I don't know how she gets anything done with those kids of hers." Alternatively, if the speaker wants to embarrass her in front of someone with a higher social standing; "Karen, these cookies are just the best thing ever! What do you put in these to make them so good?"

sulam 5y ago

I was with you until tortoise. US English speaker here, but I have literally never heard anyone say “tor-toys”. I think I’d have a serious moment if I did. Is there some link you can throw our way to demonstrate the point? YouTube?

rossitter 5y ago
I can say I have heard this from native speakers, but I can't pull up any YouTube links right now. I suspect I've heard it from people who don't always go by the spelling pronunciation, in the same way many people who insert a T sound into often don't always do so. (I include myself in the "variable often" group.) For what it's worth the Oxford English Dictionary lists /ˈtɔːtɔɪs/ ("TAW-toice") and /'tɔːtɔɪz/ ("TAW-toiz") as alternate pronunciations in British English. This appears to be the result of a revision made to the entry sometime after 1989. (The public-facing revision history is not very precise.)
throwaway8451 5y ago
Here is an example by the singer / band "Marina and the Diamonds". The song is called "Forget": https://youtu.be/17UL5ks9amY?t=169 https://youtu.be/17UL5ks9amY?t=169
the_greyd 5y ago
As someone from India, "tor-toys" is what you would hear from most Indians. For most words of the kind, in india they would be pronounced in exactly the way that would make you remember the spelling of the word (since you are graded on that). I would bet that's the case with most non native speakers.

jhanschoo 5y ago

I think Anthony is a natural English development; Latin has Antonius and french has Antoine. Affricatization is a common process