# Eh, (T)rebek? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 7, 2011, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eh-t-rebek/591808 "2011-08-07T05:28:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2011, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eh-t-rebek/591808/21 "2011-08-07T16:11:30Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > I don’t understand. Your tongue has to touch the roof of the mouth in both words, because of the N, but in neither words should be touching the roof of the mouth at the _end_ of the word. Exactly! (See post #15 😉 ) ---
**Author:** ![Baal\_Houtham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baal_houtham/32/13604_2.png) [@Baal\_Houtham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baal_Houtham)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2011, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eh-t-rebek/591808/22 "2011-08-07T16:17:17Z")
> [@JKellyMap](#): > > I’m afraid I don’t believe you! 😉 Seriously, a lot of the time, this kind of thing depends on whether we are pronouncing something carefully, slowly, and in a situation which encourages self-consciousness, vs. how we usually pronounce something in everyday life. That’s why linguists often prefer to analyze recordings of people who are unaware that they’re being recorded. Likewise I will not believe you without a link showing that 99.5% of Americans pronounce the word as “Chruck.” I’m sure I unconsciously slur many words, but am having trouble pronouncing _chruck_ in such as way that it doesn’t require more effort to say than _truck_. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2011, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eh-t-rebek/591808/23 "2011-08-07T16:26:40Z")
As a good Chicagoan, of course I have a fronchroom. But I’m pretty sure those are trucks going by outside. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2011, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eh-t-rebek/591808/24 "2011-08-07T16:27:39Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > Definitely homophones in my dialect, along with cents and sense. Same here, but we’re in the same dialect. I, too, say _truck_ as something that could probably be better rendered as “chruck.” ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2011, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eh-t-rebek/591808/25 "2011-08-07T16:28:37Z")
> [@Baal\_Houtham](#): > > Likewise I will not believe you without a link showing that 99.5% of Americans pronounce the word as “Chruck.” I’m sure I unconsciously slur many words, but am having trouble pronouncing _chruck_ in such as way that it doesn’t require more effort to say than _truck_. I’m on it. (Sent out emails to a few linguists asking how best to demonstrate this online.) ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2011, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eh-t-rebek/591808/26 "2011-08-07T16:32:23Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > I, too, say _truck_ as something that could probably be better rendered as “chruck.” After further review by the judges, I must amend my former claim: I \*do \*say “chruck” if the word “delivery” is in front of it, it seems. Garbage truck, moving truck, ice cream truck, trucks and cars…delivery chruck. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2011, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eh-t-rebek/591808/27 "2011-08-07T16:39:51Z")
> [@Baal\_Houtham](#): > > Likewise I will not believe you without a link showing that 99.5% of Americans pronounce the word as “Chruck.” I’m sure I unconsciously slur many words, but am having trouble pronouncing _chruck_ in such as way that it doesn’t require more effort to say than _truck_. [Here’s](http://literalminded.wordpress.com/category/phonetics-and-phonology/consonants/affricates/) one good discussion of the issue. I agree with you that it’s not cut and dried, but you are way off with your “99.5%” figure. More along the lines of 50%, at most. While the above link refesr to teh specific issue of affricate (“ch”) pronunciation of initial “t” before “r”, the _general_ issue we’re discussing here is: > [@](#): > > Palatalization may be a synchronic phonological process, i.e., some phonemes have palatalized allophones in certain contexts, typically before front vowels, and unpalatalized allophones elsewhere. Because it is allophonic, it often goes unnoticed by native speakers. As an example, compare the /k/ of English key with that of of coo, or tea with took. The consonant in the first word of each pair is palatalized, but few English speakers would perceive them as distinct. (that’s from [here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palatalization)) ---
**Author:** ![california\_jobcase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9d8465/32.png) [@california\_jobcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/california_jobcase)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2011, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eh-t-rebek/591808/28 "2011-08-07T16:41:19Z")
Chruck? _Chruck?_ Do you say Chrain for train? Chree for tree? I said chruck about ten times, then truck, and chruck just sounds wrong to me. I’m a central Indiana native. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2011, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eh-t-rebek/591808/29 "2011-08-07T16:50:40Z")
> [@california\_jobcase](#): > > Chruck? _Chruck?_ Do you say Chrain for train? Yes, and so do you, probably. (In un-self-aware, everyday speech). > [@california\_jobcase](#): > > Chree for tree? Yes, again. > [@california\_jobcase](#): > > I said chruck about ten times, then truck, and chruck just sounds wrong to me. Once again…that’s almost surely because you are, in this instance, _self-consciously_ pronouncing it, and therefore _unconsciously_ trying to make it to conform closer to how you write it. ---
**Author:** ![Erdosain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/erdosain/32/7284_2.png) [@Erdosain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Erdosain)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2011, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eh-t-rebek/591808/30 "2011-08-07T16:53:49Z")
Forget chtrucks, I just realized that I actually say “Chrebek”! This is messing with my mother-chrucking mind. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2011, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eh-t-rebek/591808/31 "2011-08-07T16:56:01Z")
Sorry…I should have included a paragraph from the link I posted, so people don’t have to go to the link if they don’t want to: > [@](#): > > The same thing happens when I pronounce /d/ in a /dr/ cluster. Just as the voiceless /t/ turns into the voiceless affricate [ʧ], the voiced /d/ turns into the voiced affricate [ʤ]. That’s the stop [d] plus the “zh” fricative [ʒ], or in other words, what we English speakers know as the “J” sound. So hadron sounds like hajron; drip like jrip; droop like jroop, etc. > > I’m not alone in these pronunciations; most speakers I’ve heard have also done it; and I’ve even heard of children who are learning to write spelling tr and dr as chr and jr. Why would this happen? To pronounce /tr/ or /dr/, your tongue’s starting position is with the tip just behind for top front teeth and the back of the tongue lowered. What comes next depends on how you pronounce your /r/s. If you make a “bunched /r/” like I do, then your tongue tip will lower and “bunch up” toward the back of your tongue, which will rise up toward the palate. If you have the “retroflex /r/”, then the back of your tongue will stay more or less where it is, and the tip of your tongue will move toward the palate, possibly enough that your tongue is curling backwards a little bit. (For more on bunched /r/ and retroflex /r/, read John Wells’s blog post or this explanation from Kevin Russell (scroll down to “retroflex”).) In either case, the tip of your tongue needs to move from its /t/ position. If, instead of picking it up from the /t/ position and placing it at the /r/ position, you just slide it from one to the other, air will escape through the gap between the tongue tip and the alveolar ridge (the part of your palate just behind your top front teeth). When that happens, you have a fricative. > > As I think about this, a question I have is why the fricatives we get are [ʃ] and [ʒ], instead of [s] and [z]. I think it’s because a bunched /r/ is made with the tongue rising toward the palate, and [ʃ] and [ʒ] are, too. So as you get to the /r/, the air is escaping over a tongue that’s closer to the position for [ʃ, ʒ] than it is to the position for [s, z]. Supporting evidence comes from the fact that this same affrication occurs when /t, d/ come before another palatal sound: /j/. ([j] represents the consonant Y sound.) That’s how we get the pronunciation witcha for wit’ your, and didja for did ya. (And the “ch” sound in spatula and tarantula.) This hypothesis would also predict that /tr/ and /dr/ affrication occurs only with speakers who have bunched /r/, not those with retroflex /r/, so there’s a research project for someone. (If it’s been done, please leave a comment giving the source!) – posted by linguist **Neal Whitman** , in post entitled “Chricky Affrication” ---
**Author:** ![california\_jobcase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9d8465/32.png) [@california\_jobcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/california_jobcase)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2011, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eh-t-rebek/591808/32 "2011-08-07T17:20:35Z")
But you said it’s only pronounced chruck 50% at most- and you haven’t heard me. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2011, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eh-t-rebek/591808/33 "2011-08-07T17:26:28Z")
Pronounced as \*\*“t” \*\*“50% at most”, I wrote, to contrast to Baal Houtham’s assertion of “99.5%” – sorry of that wasn’t clear. Eh, I was just giving him/her the benefit of the doubt, until I (or one of Frylock’s friends) came up with a well-researched figure. I really don’t know what the percentage is, but based on the commentary I did find from Neil Whitman and others in the know, I’d guess it’s a very low figure (though perhaps not the 0% which Frylock attested.) You’re right, you may be one of the exceptions. No worries! ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2011, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eh-t-rebek/591808/34 "2011-08-07T18:06:54Z")
I’ve been saying it quickly and slowly and in different positions in sentences, and it’s truck, not chruck. Same with tree. \* Go climb the tree.\* Absolutely tree and not chree. ---
**Author:** ![StuffLikeThatThere](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bc8723/32.png) [@StuffLikeThatThere](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StuffLikeThatThere)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2011, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eh-t-rebek/591808/35 "2011-08-07T18:47:44Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > (Witness a friend of mine who insisted she pronounced ‘truck’ with an initial ‘t’ sound rather than an initial ‘ch’ sound. But she didn’t, and afaik, no one does.) I just discovered that I say chruck. I am gobsmacked. And fascinated. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2011, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eh-t-rebek/591808/36 "2011-08-07T18:50:31Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > I’m also dubious that there’s anyone who speaks English who pronounces these words differently. It’s very common for people to _think_ they pronounce things one way when in fact they don’t. Or, when such people get up in front of others to make some kind of a “proper” speech, they affect their speech unnaturally to say it the way they think it “should” be said. (And they sound kind of foolish for doing so.) > [@Chronos](#): > > It’s not a truly silent T… For the sake of discussion, I would describe the coda we’re talking about in the North American Standard English word _cent_ as an unreleased glottal stop, which is realized as released when in medial positions followed by unstressed vowels, in words such as _bottle_–although there’s some disagreement about that. Here’s a [paper from Santa Cruz discussing that disagreement](http://people.ucsc.edu/~jpobrien/papers/obrien_tglot.pdf). (pdf): [QUOTE=Jeremy O’Brien, UC Santa Cruz] There appears to be a large amount of variation when it comes to English t-glottalization. The use of this process can vary by geographical region, social factors, and by phonological position|moreover, the phonological positions vary depending on these other factors. [/quote] ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2011, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eh-t-rebek/591808/37 "2011-08-07T18:52:47Z")
Trippy trees tricked a tragic truck for trusting tracks to trigger. Whisper that several times in a row and see what it sounds like. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2011, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eh-t-rebek/591808/38 "2011-08-07T18:55:52Z")
Okay, **California jobcase** and **John Mace** , I believe you guys. The linguist I quoted surmised that it might have to do with different ways that different people pronounce “r” – “bunched” vs. “retroflex”, as he put it. I’m not an expert on this. I do think we have at least established that the “chruck” pronunciation is a lot more common than some people assume, while the “truck” pronunciation is at least somewhat more common than Frylock and I assumed. And, to get back to the OP, we have established (I hope) that “adolescence” and “adolescents” really are homonyms. Essentially everyone, in both cases, has the tongue in a dental position, but without pronouncing a full “T” sound, just before the “s”. For those that doubted this but now see that it is so, a classic lesson in not letting the written version of a word lead you astray. (I recently came across this same overall concept when discussing with someone — a teacher of English as a second language – whether \*idli \*(also spelled _iddly_), a kind of South Asian bread, is pronounced just like _Italy_ by most speakers of English. That is, no one pronounces the “t” in Italy as a “t”, but rather as a “d”; and, no one can pronounce a word like “idli” without inserting a schwa sound between the “d” and the “l”.) ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2011, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eh-t-rebek/591808/39 "2011-08-07T18:56:41Z")
I’ll tell you one I’ve never bought though: I’ve seen blog entries by multiple linguists insisting that the vowel sound in “sing” is the same as the one in “sin.” To which I say: _No. Effing. Way._. But maybe this is my “truck.” ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2011, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eh-t-rebek/591808/40 "2011-08-07T18:58:19Z")
> [@JKellyMap](#): > > Okay, **California jobcase** and **John Mace** , I believe you guys. The linguist I quoted surmised that it might have to do with different ways that different people pronounce “r” – “bunched” vs. “retroflex”, as he put it. > > I’m not an expert on this. I do think we have at least established that the “chruck” pronunciation is a lot more common than some people assume, while the “truck” pronunciation is at least somewhat more common than Frylock and I assumed. I’m still thinking it’s very close to zero. I didn’t read the whole link–does the linguist attest to “t-truck” (as opposed to “ch-truck”) being observed in natural conversational English? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eh-t-rebek/591808.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eh-t-rebek/591808.md?page=3)