The 't' in 'often'  

Posted by BT in , ,


Now I'm all for the provincials holding on to their quaint working class grammar as it makes it so much easier to distinguish between us and them. However, my educated ear cannot abide those in the aspirational classes who insist on pronouncing the 't' in 'often'.

As Father's good friend H.W. Fowler wrote in the 1920s, 'The sounding of the t is practised by two oddly consorted classes - the academic speakers who affect a more precise enunciation than their neighbours... & the uneasy half-literates who like to prove they can spell...'

Life your game people!!!

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 2, 2009 at 9:06 AM and is filed under , , . You can follow any responses to this entry through the comments feed .

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