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Discussion Forum—A Way with Words, a fun radio show and podcast about language

A Way with Words, a radio show and podcast about language and linguistics.

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"Often"
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1
2012/07/01 - 4:11pm

 I've   noticed that people under about the age of 50 tend to pronounce "often" with a hard "t". Older people tend to leave the "t" silent, pronouncing it "offen".   I attribute this to the prevalance of grade school phonics lessons, but really have no idea.   Pronouncing the "t" adds complexity to the word and sounds slightly pretentious to my ear.   What do think?

Robert
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2
2012/07/01 - 9:07pm

It does sound pretentious with the t, though it seems I hear t just as often as not, from young and old.
But never hear 'oftentimes' different from the one way- it would just produce too many spits from the 2 t's so close together.
By the way I never hear t in 'listen' either; wonder how far back since the t in there went silent?

Guest
3
2012/07/02 - 3:37am

There are many words with silent t in similar phonetic context: fasten, soften, hasten, chasten, listen, etc.

Chestnut?

Guest
4
2012/07/10 - 10:13am

In my viewpoint pronouncing 't' in "often" sounds informal .

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