Does anyone know if this is a regional or cultural thing?
I know that Gilbert and Sullivan didn’t pronounce the T, either, because they made a joke in The Pirates of Penzance out of the fact that (with an English accent) “often” and “orphan” sound the same (ie, no T sound).
Do you pronounce the T on “often”?
Yes
No
I never use the word.
0voters
However, I don’t intend this thread to be about just this one word. Feel free to suggest others that have alternate pronunciations: tomato, potato, either, neither, etc. Let’s not call the whole thing off.
I have always pronounced it “offen.” I guess I was taught that way in elementary school and it stuck. It often irritates me to hear the “t” pronounced, because to me it is not correct.
I also say “eye-there” and “nye-ther” often, though I will occasionally pronounce them the other way.
Hmm. This is one of those words where both pronunciations sound right to me? I’m not actually sure which I use because saying both now, neither sounds wrong. (Speaking of, “neither” is another word like that.) I think when I say it without thinking I wouldn’t say the T, but maybe sometimes I do?
There’s a slew of words with “-ten” that don’t pronounce the previous consonant: soften, moisten, listen, glisten, fasten, chasten, rustle, wrestle, whistle. It’s not wrong wrong to pronounce the “t” in “often”, but it’s overcompensating.
I generally pronounce it without the T, but if I’m being condescending I’ll add it. If I’m being really condescending I’ll use the older archaic synonym “oft”.
Although given my very hybrid accent it does sound like “orphan” in a very Hampsire accent.
My mum, though, a British born English teacher who speaks the King’'s English, does emphasise the “T” sound. (The way the Queen, in the Netflix series pronounces it)
I’ve only been to Hampshire once, when I was eleven years old, and then only for 2 weeks
This. Pronouncing the “t” in any of that list of words is affected hypercorrection, at least in US English. For sure “often” seems to be the word that most often gets that mistaken treatment.
As to “either”, I use both the EE-ther and EYE-ther pronunciations depending on context, although I can’t really pin down my decision rule; hell it might just be random or chosen for sorta-rhyming with the other vowel sounds in the sentence. Same for “neither”. For sure if they’re both used in proximity, they’ll be pronounced consistently.
My Late Aged MIL was rasied in upstate New York and later moved to Connecticut for her young adult years. Somehow she deciced she was a right-proper New Englander. And she decided the only correct way to pronounce “Connecticut” was to emphasize the “c” in the middle. Also no lazy schwas for her anywhere, the “cut” part had a very distinct short “u” sound with a big plosive on the trailing T. Sort of “conneC-tih-cuhT”. It was very distinctive. Other than that oddity she spoke very typical high register US English.
I pronounce leisure so it rhymes with measure, which is not the common pronunciation where I’m from. Sometimes I catch myself and say it the “normal” way.
I think I pronounce the t in often when I’m thinking about saying the word, likely because that’s the way I read it in my head. Who knows how I say it when I’m speechifying.
Yeah, “offen,” “ee-ther.” I think most of the words I mispronounce are words I had read before I had ever heard them or looked them up. Among them:
*“Plantain” Somewhat recently the pronunciation “plan-tane” was added to dictionaries. Its official pronunciation was “plan-t’n.” I’ve personally never heard or used its original pronunciation.
“Quinoa” Not ever having experience it, nor having a need to use it, but having seen it in grocery stores, I would have pronounced it as “kwy-no-uh.” It wasn’t until I heard it on the Food Network years ago that I figured that this “keen-wah” stuff was “quinoa.”
“Avoirdupois” I would pronounce it closer to its French “a-vwar-doo-pwah” instead of “a-ver-duh-poiz.”
I commit some consonant gemination in numbers 13, 14, 18, and 19, as I would pronounce them as “thirt-teen,” “fort-teen,” etc. instead of “thir-teen,” “for-teen,” etc. And when I hear others, I notice which way they pronounce them. IME, for Americans its mixed, but for Brits it’s more articulated as in the latter.
*And there are some fine distinctions in pronunciation with words such as “mountain” and “Clinton,” where I (and most people I’ve heard) pronounce them as “mount’n” and “Clint’n” as opposed to the more articulated “moun-t’n” and “Clin-t’n.”
I replied ‘no’, but actually I think I use both. Am English, if that helps, but imagine my compatriots all do differently depending on where they’re from. I’ve lived all over the Midlands and South East and West England so my pronunciation habits are a bit mangled.
I learned it as of-Ten. I heard someone pronounce it of-fen and thought they were pronouncing it wrong. I looked it up and now pronounce it “correctly” as of-fen.
But, now I of-fen pronounce listen as lis-Ten. (depending on who’s around).
Of late I’ve been bugged by the (chiefly British, I believe) pronunciation of “6th” as “sickth”. What the hell, man? And I have yet to hear anybody pronounce every syllable of proper name of hump day: “Wed-nes-day”, anyone? How do we get ‘wendsday’ out of that?
I don’t often pronounce it. But when I’m engaged in public speaking (most often, the readings at church), I deliberately over-enunciate, which would include that T.