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September 1, 2012 8:51 am
Oh no you di-int! The linguistic term for what happens when someone pronounces didn't as "di-int," or Martin as Mar-in without the t sound, is called glottalization. Instead of making a t sound with the tongue behind the teeth, a different sound is made farther back in the mouth. John Rickford, professor of linguistics at Stanford University, does a thorough job tracing this phenomenon in the book African-American English: Structure, History, and Use. This is part of a complete episode.