What?
Stupid Pet Peeves
- Thread starter Hartsock
- Start date
Huh?
The pronunciation of that word that bugs me is the classic Utahn version, "impor'ihnt". I.e. no "t" in the middle but a glottal stop instead.
The classic Utah pronunciation of lots of words is irritating. You get that same effect with the word "Lay'uhn" for Layton. "Rill" for real is another one, generally pronouncing any long "e" and a short "i". "Melk" for milk. The list goes on and on.
I am with you on this one.
Darkwing Duck
Well-Known Member
Pet peeve of mine is treating the American glottal stop as some sort of Utah original or specialty and not a feature of American English as a whole.
Yep, yep, and yep.
I've lived in six different states in eight different time periods ranging over 50 years--Missouri, Connecticut, Maryland, Utah, California, Maryland again, Wisconsin, and Utah again--and it's BY FAR the most pronounced in Utah. Like, not even close. (Disclaimer: I don't actually recall Missouri as I was too young.)
We're mostly near urban centers or in rural areas?
Rural in Wisconsin, suburban and urban everywhere else.
Darkwing Duck
Well-Known Member
What is "more pronounced?"
What is a Utah pronunciation of "mittens" that is more pronounced than
What is a Utah pronunciation of "mittens" that is more pronounced than
Darkwing Duck
Well-Known Member
Like, within the first two seconds of this official video done by the town's chamber of commerce, you replace the d with an l and it's the exact same way I hear people here say Layton.
Pet peeve hill right here I'm standing on.
Pet peeve hill right here I'm standing on.
The difference is they are pronouncing the "t" then going into the "in". For standard Utah the "t" is hinted at but not pronounced. Hence a glottal stop not a dental stop.
Say "lay" then pause briefly then say "un". Then try "late" then "un". That's the difference.
It's lazier.
Say "lay" then pause briefly then say "un". Then try "late" then "un". That's the difference.
It's lazier.
Other than my mission, I’ve lived in Utah my whole life. I’ve never said “melk”. It is milk. I’ve also never said “pellow”. It’s pillow. I don’t usually say “rill”, but probably do on occasion.
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Yeah not everyone falls into it. But enough do to make it a thing.
Darkwing Duck
Well-Known Member
The t is an alveolar stop. And the examples I gave are glottal stops. That Dayton sounds the same as Layton. Mitten has the alveolar ridge untouched. The glottal stop is the same.
Then you just haven't heard or cannot differentiate the utahn version of this. The examples you gave the stop happens at the front of the mouth. The utahn version happens in the throat. Try my example. If you can't tell a difference you might just be a utahn.
That *is* the Utah pronunciation of mittens.
But Utahns also do it for mountains, Colton, etc., etc., etc.
@Darkwing Duck Here's a journal article on the effect. You should read it.
Where Are the Moun[ɁƏ]ns in Utah?
One stigmatized feature of Utah speech is the “dropped t” in words such as kitten and mountain. We investigated three possible phonetic correlates of “t-dropping” by recording participants from Utah and other Western states reading a document containing several instances of /t/ followed by a...
read.dukeupress.edu
From the abstract, emphasis added.
"We investigated three possible phonetic correlates of “t-dropping” by recording participants from Utah and other Western states reading a document containing several instances of /t/ followed by a syllabic nasal. The first possible correlate, actual deletion of /t/, was uncommon but occurred slightly more often in the mouths of Utahns. The second possible correlate was realizing /t/ as a glottal stop, which was actually done more often by non-Utahns than Utahns (89% versus 81%, resp.). The third correlate, releasing the glottal stop orally rather than nasally (e.g., [khiɁƏn] and [mawɁƏn] vs. [khiɁƏn̩] and [mawɁƏn̩]) is the most likely candidate for “t-dropping” since Utahns did this in 17% of the cases compared to less than 1% in non-Utahns."
*That's* the Utah thing. It's not done by all Utahns, but it's done way more often in Utah than anywhere else. You're talking about the second one, I think, but we're talking about the third one.
Darkwing Duck
Well-Known Member
The third one? The one the article says is [mawɁƏn̩] instead of [mawɁƏn]? Either bad formatting by the abstract or it's the same IPA pronunciation. The article has a slightly different looking n that I can't identify in IPA.@Darkwing Duck Here's a journal article on the effect. You should read it.
Where Are the Moun[ɁƏ]ns in Utah?
One stigmatized feature of Utah speech is the “dropped t” in words such as kitten and mountain. We investigated three possible phonetic correlates of “t-dropping” by recording participants from Utah and other Western states reading a document containing several instances of /t/ followed by a...
From the abstract, emphasis added.
"We investigated three possible phonetic correlates of “t-dropping” by recording participants from Utah and other Western states reading a document containing several instances of /t/ followed by a syllabic nasal. The first possible correlate, actual deletion of /t/, was uncommon but occurred slightly more often in the mouths of Utahns. The second possible correlate was realizing /t/ as a glottal stop, which was actually done more often by non-Utahns than Utahns (89% versus 81%, resp.). The third correlate, releasing the glottal stop orally rather than nasally (e.g., [khiɁƏn] and [mawɁƏn] vs. [khiɁƏn̩] and [mawɁƏn̩]) is the most likely candidate for “t-dropping” since Utahns did this in 17% of the cases compared to less than 1% in non-Utahns."
*That's* the Utah thing. It's not done by all Utahns, but it's done way more often in Utah than anywhere else. You're talking about the second one, I think, but we're talking about the third one.
Either way, what you posted absolutely disputes post 5368 about alveolar stops vs. glottal stops and is AT BEST a regional quirk and absolutely nothing to do with laziness. In fact, it's an extra step to go from glottal stop to voiced vowel to alveolar nasal.