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Do you, or folks you know, pronounce 'often' by sounding the 't'? There is a very interesting discussion of this in today's Random House 'Word of the Day'. http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/?action=dly__cron_arc&fn=wordThere is also a recent discussion of 'story' used in the building sense which will interest those who followed that thread here.
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Cool! Fascinating history of story!
Tsuwm, somewhere within you lies a born instructor,
I just know it!
Incidentally, I say offen, but often hear off-ten.
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A key part of the plot of Gilbert & Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance rests on the pronunciation of, respectively, 'often' and 'orphan', which suggests that in the late 19th century both words sounded similar, ie the 't' was not sounded.
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Pooh-Bah
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I'm definitely with the "t". It sounds weird without, not sure if this places me above or below the salt.
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>>I'm definitely with the "t". <<
Me, too!
In "Souf Effrican Inglush" the 't' is silent. Not that that's any criterion - the language is of't'en severely mauled.
Your turn with the salt, Jo!
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>not sure if this places me above or below the salt.
please gloss...
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Pooh-Bah
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>the pronunciation without the (t) sound became predominant among the educated classes in North America and Great Britain, and the one that included (t) was not looked upon kindly In the middle ages people sat at a long table in the manor house. The peasantry sat below the salt. By extension - I am a peasant! http://www.shu.ac.uk/web-admin/phrases/list/61200.htmlThank goodness I can say nuclear!
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In the late 60s and early 70s, I was very "into" folk music. I still have an album by a surely-defunct-by-this-time British group called "Fotheringay". Its title is "Below the Salt." The cover picture illustrates well the concept.
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Whoops, I got my Fotheringay and Steeleye Span mixed up. They are sort of connected via Fairport Connection and Sandy Denny, may she rest in peace. http://www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/~zierke/sandy.denny/
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> Do you, or folks you know, pronounce 'often' by sounding the 't'? There is a very interesting discussion of this in today's
Random House 'Word of the Day'.
Despite the survey's findings I know of no-one that pronounces 'often' with the 't' silent. I've heard it many times on television (particularly US programmes) but it just doesn't seem to be pronounced any other way than off-ten over here. It really sounds weird with the 't' silent.
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'strornery' the things one takes for granted. The only times that I regularly hear 'often' pronounced with a 't' is among our older folk. Usually among those of the vintage to pronounce 'vase' as 'vorse', 'trough' as 'troe'' and 'scone' as rhyming with 'bone'.
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stranger
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I was thinking, surely that wasn't Fotheringay, but I'm never *quite* sure with these things.
Fairport Convention are great. :-)
Rach.
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Rach.
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AOL IM: RachelEDugdale
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I've never really noticed often pronounced without the 't' other than as a sort of slang thing - generally by people who just can't be bothered to speak properly at all. It sits with dropping 'h's and the like.
Rach.
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Rach.
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AOL IM: RachelEDugdale
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Pooh-Bah
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Scone - bone is an interesting one.
The pronunciation of scone does not go along the lines of class/wealth or anything else.
Where I was brought up scone rhymed with bone, scone rhyming with upon was considered to be a bit pretentious.
Here in Edinburgh my children tell me that scone rhymes with upon and scone rhyming with bone is a bit "posh".
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I don't recall ever hearing the 'scon' pronunciation here is the US.
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stranger
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Here in Australia the bone pronunciation would be considered a bit posh, too. To confuse things though we have a town called Scone - pronounced as in bone. How about that.
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> Scone - bone is an interesting one. The pronunciation of scone does not go along the lines of class/wealth or anything else. Where I was brought up scone rhymed with bone, scone rhyming with upon was considered to be a bit pretentious. Here in Edinburgh my children tell me that scone rhymes with upon and scone rhyming with bone is a bit "posh". That's interesting. My aunt in Scotland says the complete opposite! Scone (pronounced 'scon') is the posh way (and proper way, in her opinion) and scone (rhyming with bone) the more common. There is aswell, the Palace of Scone in Scotland which is pronounced 'scoon'. Just to confuse matters  . While we're on the subject of words of this nature what about all the different ways that you can pronounce words that end in 'ough'? I believe there are nine different ways and you can form a coherent sentence using an example of each. I'll try to remember it for a later posting.
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There was something in previous thread about -ough endings. It was called "schoolwork" in Q&A about words in May.
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Do y'all think it would be fair to sum up by deciding the T-less often is standard (North) American and the T-full often is standard Everywhere Else? (I'd like to hear a vote from Canada, still...)
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Rubrick
I think your aunt is right. The children are just misinterpreting what they see as an unusual pronunciation.
I find it is quite common here in Edinburgh amongst young children to regard any English accent (I mean any) as "posh". I've noticed this when the children are asked to play certain characters in drama.
Several people have told me that as an English "Northener" it took a long time to be regarded as a "Southerner". It is technically true on the compass but being from the North rather than the South is about much more than points on a compass! I imagine it is true for people in other countries too.
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Okay--define "posh" for this poor Yankee.
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elegant, fashionable, fancy (slangy) there is an interesting story behind the origin of posh: http://quinion.com/words/qa/qa-pos1.htm
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Pooh-Bah
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I think most people here believe in the "Port Out Starboard Home" story. Even if it's not true it sounds true!
To descibe "posh" you have to understand our British obsession with irony. I think that "elegant" might be true but doesn't capture the word. I suspect that "fancy" is a better description as it has more of a dual nature. It's quite a childish word. It has an inverted snobbery overtone. If you said someone was "posh" you'd be more likely to mean pretentious than elegant. On the other hand someone might be quite pleased to be going to a smart occasion and might go out to buy a "posh frock". Translating it to a "fancy dress" rather than "elegant gown" would capture more of the flavour
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In reply to:
a "fancy dress"
as opposed to fancy dress, not the same thing at all.
Bingley
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Pooh-Bah
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Absolutely
(This ties in rather well with the clothes worn at some public schools)
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Okay, y'all're startin' to lose me now!
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Pooh-Bah
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I was just refering to the school uniform worn at Eton (one of our "Public Schools"). It has been in the news here recently with the eighteenth birthday pictures that were taken of Prince William. If you look at the Sunday Times Newspaper for 18th June 2000 you can see the pictures - N.B. this is the school uniform for those in their last year, they are not dressed for a wedding. Apparently they can wear their own choice of waistcoat. http://www.sunday-times.co.uk
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Pooh-Bah
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Funny, we were talking about salt all that time ago but I remember that the poster in question was a Southern gal in those days!
Thought you might like a quick scan of an old thread, a-a-h, the nostalgia!
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paulb says, A key part of the plot of Gilbert & Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance rests on the [confusion of] pronunciation of, respectively, 'often' and 'orphan', which suggests that in the late 19th century both words sounded similar...
Part of that (I think?) is that the pirates speak in a lower-class accent, so that the "of" of "often" would sound like the "or" of orphan.
And part of the humor is the contrast between their earthy speech and the prissiness of their interlocutor, Major General Stanley. The humor of rough men speaking in high-falutin' language recurs throughout the libretto.
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It's a while since I saw a production, Keiva, so forgive my hazy memories, but I thought the ongoing joke was quite the other way around: they are all noblemen living a life as pirates, yet speaking in u/c accents, aren't they? [but confused!] I am sure you are right, whichever, that the accent is to do with class or its pretentions - "Are you orffen heuh?" can still be heard on the terraces at Glyndebourne
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the [confusion of] pronunciation of, respectively, 'often' and 'orphan', which suggests that in the late 19th century both words sounded similar...
Part of that (I think?) is that the pirates speak in a lower-class accent, so that the "of" of "often" would sound like the "or" of orphan.
But -- one of the corners of my junk drawer memory has an item about often:
The t was added during the inkhorn days to reflect some etymological concern of the inkhornists and was not to be pronounced. Pronunciation of the t was a hypercorrection that has insinuated itself into a state of inertial correctness.
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maverick: forgive my hazy memories, but I thought the ongoing joke was quite the other way around: they are all noblemen living a life as pirates
The "concealed noblemen" gag isn't ongoing. Only at the very end of the operetta does Ruth pull out that claim (that the pirates are actually noblemen), as a deus ex machina to save the pirates from being punished for their life of crime. Until the very end of the play you have no notion that the pirates may supposedly be, as Ruth claims, "all noblemen who have gone wrong".
The Pirate King's song, near the beginning, sets the tone that the pirates are not aristocracy: "Many a king on a first-class throne, / If he wants to call his crown his own, / Must manage somehow to get though / More dirty work than ever I do."
EDIT: Mav, forgive me - my quotes were right but my conclusion was wrong. Although the "fact" that the pirates are noblemen isn't revealed until the end, it is foreshadowed from the very start. (The play opens with a song whose first line is, "Pour, oh pour, the pirate sherry" - and what kind of a pirate would drink sherry, of all things?)
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From seeing "oft" in poetry so frequently, I have tended to pronounce the "t".
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Apparently they can wear their own choice of waistcoat.
Ah, now -- do you pronounce it waist-coat or weskit or as US'ns do - vest!
Or do I understand correctly that vest is an entirely different garment to Brits ?
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waist-coat. I believe a vest is called an undershirt in the US. At any rate it's a mainly male undergarment something like a singlet or T-shirt.
Bingley
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Okay, what the heck is a singlet, please?
I'm in a bit of a rush right now, so maybe I missed it,
but what on earth are "inkhorn days", or should I perhaps ask what is an inkhorn?
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Partly me running with the language again, Jackie, but inkhorn terms were words that came popping out of the rediscovery of Latin and Greek in the Renaissance. Not content to let the language proceed as it had, propelled only by winds of political conquest, some scholars dug through the mine field of the ancient languages and produced a horde of neologisms; some made it and some didn't.
cohibit - inhibit
expede - impede
Ah! Those were the days.
The words flowed from the scholars' inkhorns like manna from the cornucopia of the gods.
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we covered (or uncovered!) clothing before..
weskit-- (and various other spelling..) =waist coat which could =vest as in a three peice suit.
but vest is also used for a men's undershirt.. not the t- shirt kind, but the kind for want of better description, sort of looks like a woman's camisole. (sleeve-less undershirt)
for me, vest 1. is sleeve-less garment, worn by men and women, over a shirt. 2. a sleeveless undershirt for a man.
and weskit and waist-coat--are ornate vests, (1.) either with collars, ruffles, or hip lenght..
i never use singlet (or doublet!) it sound archaic to my ears!
ink horns= ink bottles.. i have some pens that i fill from an ink bottle, and few pens that i dip into an ink bottte to use. my every day fountain pens tend to use cartridges.. (purple ink,at the present) or are pilot disposable fountain pens.
bottled ink is india (black)--a pint size bottle, half used, and a small bottle, (2 oz.?) in what used to be called peacock blue, but is now called "de mar" --sea blue.
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old hand
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Singlet is still the common term for that little all-in-one number that Greco-Roman wrestlers wear...
Oh yeah, and I pronounce the t in often. That confused all of my students when I was teaching English in Korea ~ they had never heard it that way.
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Dear Jmh: In your post of over a year ago, you said currently "scone" rhymes with "upon". If that is the case, how is the "Stone of Scone" pronounced? (see URL below) http://members.aol.com/Skyelander/stone.html
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Dear Max: The Scun of Stun is a very significant historical object. Or is the the Scon of Ston?
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Pooh-Bah
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Bill, that is a very good question. I will seek out a real Scot and get you an answer (or three).
For me it would be scone to rhyme with the standard pronunciation of stone (is there another?)
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old hand
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My impression is that 'offen' is standard in Australia.
As Lucy noted, 'offten' seems to lay in the realm of the older folk (say +70's...) here.
stales
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Thank goodness I can say nuclear!How about aluminium and realtor? My ex-father-in-law always came up with something like, "The reelator tried to sell me a house with aloonyum siding." 
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I've been thinking about how I pronounce it and realize that if it's just another word in a sentence, I omit the 't'; but if there is any emphasis on it, I pronounce the 't'. I tend to think I have heard other people doing this. I don't see one as more correct than the other.
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