Since I think we haven't been having enough fun lately on OSNews, I decided it's time we do something fun for a change. We all have our little pet annoyances when it comes to other people's comments. Fixed expressions or comment styles that annoy the living daylights out of you. Here are mine.
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Member since:2006-01-02
Uhh, no. Okay, it may be true that different dialects have adopted the spelling pronunciation with the 't' to greater and lesser degrees. Here in America it's fairly rare (although more common than I'd like). It's still a spelling pronunciation. You could convince me that it's not a spelling pronunciation in your dialect if people also pronounce "listen", "hasten", "fasten", "soften" and "chestnut" with a 't' (and I really hope they don't because that would sound terrible).
Member since:2009-08-05
Yep in UK English (first!) all those words are pronounced with the "t" - in pretty much all the dialects I can think of. Of course we mangle the pronunciation of most words in our own special accents but the t is nearly always evident.
Anybody else find it ironic that an American is giving the world a lesson in English.....:-)
My pet peeve is "aluminum" gaaarggghhhhh - it's "aluminium"!
I'm only jealous because we lost the colony!
Member since:2006-01-02
As for "then" and "than", they can't have because it came from the same word whose spelling was not regularly kept distinct until the last few centuries (not until the 1700s was the spelling consistently distinguished between "than" and "then"). And even now that some people do distinguish these words, it's only in careful pronunciation that people maintain the distinction. Both words are almost always unstressed and unstressed syllables in English are almost invariably pronounced with schwas, regardless of the nature of the original vowel. As such, English phonological rules practically prohibit a difference in pronunciation between the two words.
Edited 2009-08-05 05:07 UTC
Member since:2005-10-19
You seem to be suffering from the assumption that English follows some kind of logic when it comes to pronounciation.
The vocalisation of the 't' in all of the examples you gave were lost over time, rather than recently gained. It's just that in a large group of English accents, it was not lost. It is therefore not wrong, just different. In fact it could be argued that pronouncing the 't' is more correct as it is closer to the original.
This statement could not be more wrong. I have to force myself to imagine a sentence where these words are pronounced the same, and no native speaker of either the UK or Australia would ever do so.
The fact that they are both born of the same root is irrelevant. Languages evolve, and they are now two separate words with separate meanings.
Member since:
2005-10-19
Both "then" and "than" come from Old English "þonne" or "þanne", which regularly changes to "then" in Middle English and is fairly consistently spelled "then" (or "þen") where we would use both "than" and "then". If there's any different in pronunciation, it is solely because of the artificial distinction in spelling.
You are wrong on both counts. Pronouncing the 't' in often, and a difference in the pronounciation in then and than, are entirely dependent on your accent. In Australia we have two general accents, and they loosely translate to country and urban accents. Both accents sound similar to foreign ears.
The urban accent, and UK "received pronounciation" from which it evovled, both pronounce the 't' in often, and they always have.
Additionally, most UK accents, and all Australian accents show a clear difference in the pronounciation of then and than, and they always have.