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garmaine | 4 years ago

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.

discuss

order

ncmncm|4 years ago

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 be the product of busybody typesetters, imagining some parallel with "should" and "would" (related to "shall" and "will"), which also do not get any "l" sound; but "could" is related to "can".

boondaburrah|4 years ago

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.

thaumasiotes|4 years ago

> 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.

Hmm? The etymology dictionaries don't appear to back you up on this.

> often (adv.): "repeatedly, again and again, many times, under many circumstances," mid-13c., an extended form of oft, in Middle English typically before vowels and h-, probably by influence of its opposite, seldom (Middle English selden).

( https://www.etymonline.com/word/often )

> From Middle English often, alteration (with final -n added due to analogy with Middle English selden (“seldom”)) of Middle English ofte, oft, from Old English oft (“oft; often”)

( https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/often )

Where did you get the idea that they weren't related?

srcreigh|4 years ago

Same with Toronto. It's really more like Turonno

wazari972|4 years ago

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" ...

jgtrosh|4 years ago

Shame, since “debt” is pronounced exactly like « dette »

pm215|4 years ago

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.