I have class in 27 minutes. I should be grading an unfortunately hefty pile of papers sitting in front of me...but I can't convince myself that it's a good idea. Instead I've been sitting here wondering about something linguistic (which is kind of related to grading papers, right? They're both language related...) and I have a question: how do you pronounce the word mountain? Do you pronounce the t in the middle as an actual
/t/? Does it sound more like you catch the air in the back of your throat and ignore the /
n/ (like
mou (air stop)
in). Does the t sound like something else? What about in these words:
center, cater, rotten.
It would make my day if you could post a comment with your approximate pronunciation of those 4 words (mountain, center, cater, rotten), along with your age and where you have lived for the majority of your life. Thanks!
Oh. And in order to get a more "accurate" description of the word, trying saying these sentences.
- The mountain is turning white with snow.
- She lives on Center Street.
- I'd love to cater your wedding.
- Please toss the rotten salad.
What did you hear?
9 comments:
mountain - I pronounce the {t} as a glottal stop (and the second syllable is a syllabic n, for what it's worth)
center - the {t} is silent
cater - the {t} is a voiced alveolar flap (or I could be less precise and call it a /d/)
rotten - same as {mountain} (glottal stop + syllabic n)
Age: 29 11/12
Place of Residence: Spent first 25 years in Utah County
Moun'-tin
Sin'-tur
Kay'-dur
Raw'-n
Age:28, Raised:TN
I apologize for my hack at deciphering my phonetics for those words. (If they don't make sense, I only glottal stop rotten, but I fake the t in cater with a d sound. The others I say "right".)
I'm so happy the two of you (and maybe some others of you out there) know what a glottal stop is! And here I am trying to simplify things for you...obviously totally unncessary.
1. Glottal stop w/ syllabic n
2. t-less
3. flap
4. Glottal stop
Same as Katya, I suppose. 6 years in Utah did me in.
Uh, oh, I have a problem.
I say SinnerField, but I say Senior Citizens Cen't'er. I think compound words get treated differently than nouns for my use of "center." Take that for what it's worth.
mountain: no n, glottal stop, syllabic n
center: no t
cater: somewhere between a flap and a d
rotten: glottal stop, syllabic n
28 1/2
Born in CA to UT parents... then moved to UT 10 years ago... so... I sound like UT.
I love procrastinating... I totally procrastinated grading a late assignment... I did it yesterday and it took 2 minutes... I felt kinda stupid. :)
I think I say both "moun-T-ain" and a slight "mou-in," (with minimal air stop) just depending on if the context of the sentence and what is easiest to pronounce. I was thinking about this just the other day, actually. I noticed that I sing "She'll be comin' round the mou-in" when I sing the song really FAST.
That being said, I really don't like the MOU-IN with a long air stop. That totally bugs me.
My pronunciation (although I'm a little ashamed of it):
"Mou (minimal air stop) in" and "moun-tain" (with only the smallest "t" sound)
"Cenner" Street (yikes!)
"Cader"
"Rodden"
I am 27 years old. I'm not sure what I should put for the majority of my life - the location where I have lived for the longest stretch is Utah (12 years).
Um, I don't know what a glottal stop is, but it sounds German.
Mountain - I pronounce the N and the T
Center - I say the T, but not when saying Center Street. Hmmm.
Cater - sometimes with a T sound and sometimes a D.
Rotten - sometimes I say Rot-n and sometimes Rot-tin
Depending on how quickly I am speaking, my pronunciation seems to change. I'll have to work on this. When I am speaking to my children, I almost always speak slowly and correctly. Subsequently, my eldest has somewhat of a British accent. Again, hmmm.
Age: almost 29
Raised: Iowa, but have lived the last 10 years all over the country.
Fau Tee says
I say them all heavy on the T.
49 for four more days.
Palmyra NY for about 28 years.
Utah for first 20 years.
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