I’ve been smugly informed by my tiny nemesis, The Dictionary Witch down the hall, that my pronouncing the “t” in “often” is incorrect, and that continued, stubborn use of the “t” will be indicative of the fact I am an irredeemable etymological donkey. Is the “t” in often always supposed to be silent? I hear perfectly well educated people using it everyday with the “t” firmly in place.
Please help! I don’t want to be a loathsome language 'tard.
According to Webster’s, either one is correct. Without the “t” is listed first. I have noticed that Dan Rather pronounces it the way that you do. Tell the witch she’s been trumped by and English teacher.
Hmmm, I read in a etymology book years ago that the “t” should not be pronounced. This site corroborates this: http://www.yourdictionary.com/library/mispron.html
But, this site has some interesting information and says that “t” can be pronounced: http://www.bartleby.com/64/C007/0141.html
Welcome to the Boards, tremorviolet.
You should pronounce “often” as “orphan”. If the Dictionary Witch complains, say that it was clearly a viable way of saying the word in Gilbert and Sullivan’s time. If she objects to that, you should say “indeed!” and wonder away confident in the trumping of use over anything else in English.
Or burn her.
http://www.dictionary.com also says that the t can be pronounced:
Personally, I pronounce the t and have never heard of offen being suggested as a valid pronunciation until this thread. I’m from the UK, if that makes a difference.
The yourdictionary site does seem to be trying to retain 19th century usage of several words that other dictionaries now recognize as valid modern usage, e.g. it objects to “snuck”, “spitting image”, diphtheria pronounced with a p instead of an f. I do approve of its disapproval or erb, though (to bring up a topic from another recent thread).
Technically, the “t” should not be pronounced. The word was originally pronounced “offen.” As people learned how to read, they couldn’t understand that the letter should have been silent.
Currently, either is correct, with “offin” more common.
The same effect has occurred with words like “comfortable” (which was originally pronounced “comf-terble”) and “victuals” (originally pronounced “vittles”).
Look at this link for words with silent letters:
Is “victuals” pronounced any way other than “vittles”? I’m only aware of the one pronunciation.
As for often, the silent “t” is still the preferred pronunciation, but it has become more and more common to pronounce the “t.” I’ve noticed this particularly in the UK, but it’s also prevalent in part of the US (and particularly by newscasters). The pronounced “t” is considered acceptable, although, personally, I still hold to the silent “t.”
I used to pronounce the ‘t’ in ‘often’, until one day some one looked at me weird and asked if I pronounced the ‘t’ in ‘soften’. I thought they had a good point.
I always thought “offen” was just a hurried or slurred way of the proper “often”. That’s interesting.
I imagine “offen” can get confused with other words when spoken, but off the top of my head I can’t think of anything that rhymes with “often”.
-k
Or cut her! Cut her so bad she wishes she … she never got cut! Yeah!
(OK, who gets the reference? Be honest.)
Anyway, I pronounce it both ways, depending on how hurried I am. Often' is for careful speech, offen’ is for casual conversation or when I’m not taking much time to pronounce everything correctly.
Skammer: I pronounce the t in soften' about as often as I pronounce the t in often.’ Neither pronunciation is dead.
Reality Chuck: I’ve only ever seen victuals in print. I’ve never heard it actually pronounced. I’ve only ever heard vittles, and that not often. In fact, I was kind of confused when I first saw `victuals’ in print (in the book Made in America by Bill Bryson, no less). (Needless to say, I’d pronounce it vittles if I ever actually said it. Which I don’t, to be honest.)
“Often” doesn’t seem to fit in this list. In all the other words - handsome, handkerchief, consumption, and raspberry - no one can tell whether you pronounce that consonant or not, because it gets lost in the way it’s sandwiched between other consonant sounds. If I try to pronounce the consonant in those words, it ends up sounding exactly the same. “Often,” on the other hand, doesn’t have another consonant sound after the “t,” so there’s a big difference.
Since pronouncing the “t” sound is a fairly recent back-formation based on the spelling, I’d advise you to avoid it. To me, it’s like when someone pronounces “daquiri” as “da-queer-ee.”
I always said “of-Ten” until my dialect teacher in acting college made me practice saying it “of-fen”.
Now that I’m a perfessinel copiediter, I know she was full of horse hockey. People say it both ways all over the US, and neither is incorrect.
However, some people may notice if you pronounce the T, but few will notice if you don’t.
“Victuals” isn’t pronounced all that often, but usually when someone sees it for the first time, they pronounce it “vick-tuals” until corrected. I don’t think that’s become a standard pronunciation yet, but it may one day.
Here’s the OED’s take:
I only pronounce the ‘t’ when I use the word ‘oftentimes’ – which ain’t offen.
Victuals is pronounced “Vittles???” Damn that Snuffy Smith!!
The ‘t’ in often is not supposed to be pronounced. If you do pronounce it that way you’ll end up sounding like Dan Rather.
So do any of you use fabric soff-tenner or just the usual fabric softener…
Easy now. I know it’s a living language. 
This word – often is becoming similar to Palm and Calm and Alms. This L isn’t said. But now it is.
If that’s the case, then why wasn’t the original spelling simply “offen”?
It was my understanding that words with pronunciations radically different from their spelling (“knight” is the one that seems to come up a lot) are generally so because they are spelt the way they were originally pronounced, and then the pronunciation changed.
Personally, I pronounce ‘often’ either way, as the whim takes me.
In the case of ‘knight’ and several similar words (eg. light, might, night, wight, fright) both the pronunciation and the spelling have changed since the days of phonetic spelling. ‘Knight’ was originally ‘knicht’, with nothing silent, and the ‘ch’ as in German. The ‘c’ changed to a ‘g’ after the ‘ch’ became silent in most dialects. The influence of French-speaking Norman scribes, I’m told.
Around here the ‘t’ in ‘often’ is, like an initial aspirate in ‘aitch’, heard more often in Catholic schools. I never heard it at my expensive private school in Sydney, and my father (who was educated at Rugby) never used it either.
According to Fowler’s (now rather dated) Modern English Usage “The pronunciation awf’n is becoming old-fashioned and of’n or of’ten is now more usual. According to the OED the sounding of the t was not then recognised by the dictionaries. But that was before the speak-as-you-spell movement got under way, and as long ago as 1933 the SOED recorded that the sounding of the t was then frequent in the South of England. That would now be an understatement of its currency. The long-drawn-out joke in The Pirates of Penzance—‘When you said orphan did you mean a person who has lost his parents, or often, frequently’—will soon be unintelligible to the audience.” (Revised edition, 1968).
So tell the Dictionary Witch that she is seventy years behind the times. But pronounce the word of’n.
Regards,
Agback