Why can't the English teach their children how to speak?
"Often" rhymes with "soften". The T is silent.Yes, often has oft as its root, just as soften has soft as its root. It's weird how you hear more and more people mispronuncing it these days.
Is it that people in America lack self-confidence in their own knowledge that as soon as they hear an alternative pronunciation of a word that they must change the way they say it? Or is it that people can't remember how to spell it without pronouncing the T?
Extra-Ordinary or ick-strordinary
Obama mispronounced another often mispronounced word, extraordinary, during that forum at Columbia University. He pronounced it extra-ordinary. It's pronounced ick-strordinary. Again, probably just a reminder on how to spell the word.
If we must make it a mission to stop George Bush from saying nukuler, let's get rid of the T in often and stop saying extraordinary as two words.
http://forums.hannity.com/showthread.php?t=857921
Why can't the English teach their children how to speak? "My Fair Lady lyrics
http://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/myfairlady/whycanttheenglish.htm
Stop spamming. British pronunciation is wrong, American is right. And why did you title the thread 'why can't the English...'? It seems you're complaining about Americans, not English, and we Americans don't have anything to do with the pasty poms.
You realize that "often" comes from the word "oft" and somewhere during the middle english it picked up an ending that it didn't used to have "-en". Given etymology pronouncing with [t] is not an incorrect "way" of pronouncing the word - although perhaps you could argue that [t] is going out of use.
As to Extraordinary: The usage of [epsilon] (sorry I don't have the proper character to use here) vs [capital-i], or in other words "e" and "i" differs VASTLY depending on which part of the country you come from. In Midwestern states "e" in extraordinary will be pronounced with "e" - it's just the way it is. If you say travel down to Oklahoma, you'll notice that all usages of "e" becomes "i". I have a friend whose name is Jenny. The correct pronounciation of her name given where she comes from is "Jinny".
There is no correct "e" vs "i". It all depends on which dialect you speak.
<<As to Extraordinary: The usage of [epsilon] (sorry I don't have the proper character to use here) vs [capital-i], or in other words "e" and "i" differs VASTLY depending on which part of the country you come from. In Midwestern states "e" in extraordinary will be pronounced with "e" - it's just the way it is. If you say travel down to Oklahoma, you'll notice that all usages of "e" becomes "i". I have a friend whose name is Jenny. The correct pronounciation of her name given where she comes from is "Jinny".>>
That's nice and all, but what does it have to do with the fact that Obama said it like it was the word "extra" followed by the word "ordinary"?
"Often" with a "t" sound and "extraordinary" pronounced as two words are acceptable alternative ways of pronouncing these words. It's just dialectal or rather idiolectal variation.
Robin,
Most of your posts on here tend to be foolish, if not downright incomprehensible.
I'd recommend you learn a little bit more about the English language and languages in general if you want to be taken at all seriously.
On the contrary, I understand fully - and agree.
Well, Caspian, you can agree and purport to "understand," but in the end you're just plain wrong--just like our friend Robin.
Many people in North America--myself included--pronounce the T in "often." There is nothing wrong about it. In case you haven't noticed, there are a lot of English speakers in the world, which means pronunciations and accents vary from region to region.
<<Often" rhymes with "soften".>>
Yes
<<The T is silent.>>
no
***we Americans don't have anything to do with the pasty poms***
That's really and truly good to know, but tell me....since when have rosy cheeked/sallow/super tanned/freckly/pale/dark/spotty/all colours of the rainbow Americans adopted Australian terms? What's wrong with the the long established All American term "limeys"?
Dear mjd [Moderator]
A Moderator should be just that. It is a big mistake to be confrontational!
I must admit I got the presentation slightly wrong. I had actually lifted a large quote, and I had not put it in quotation marks. The quote came from:
http://forums.hannity.com/showthread.php?t=857921
which happened to be an American source.
I also quoted something from 'My Fair Lady' which was taken out of context to imply a pro-British stance. It was simply meant to be amusing.
So, I think we are back in 'storm in a tea cup' territory.
Often with [t] is spelling pronunciation, just like vehicle with [h].
Robin,
As a moderator, I make sure the forum rules aren't violated. That does not, however, prevent me from participating in the discussions. If I disagree with someone, I will confront him or her. Much of your recent posts have been unclear or even wholly off topic.
If I misunderstood your post--which is understandable given the omissions you just mentioned--I suppose an apology is warranted.
In turn, I direct my criticism to the posters you quoted in those other forums.
<<That does not, however, prevent me from participating in the discussions.>>
Then how come you don't post in the "What is “antimoon”?" thread about the meaning of the name Antimoon? I'm yearning to know the answer to the thousand year old mystery!
