firecat: red panda, winking (Default)
[personal profile] firecat
Disclaimer: I don't know the right linguistic terms for various sounds.

Lately I’ve been noticing people pronouncing contractions that end in “dn’t” (didn't, shouldn't, wouldn't) with a schwa-ish vowel sound between ‘d’ and ‘n’. I use something more like a little grunt.

-Have you noticed this?
-I mostly don’t actually talk to anyone these days, so I’m noticing this in shows I watch. Maybe it’s something actors are told to do to make their speech clearer?
-Has this been a thing all along and I just didn't notice until recently?

Here is a link with some Americans pronouncing "didn't". The clip from Azaleabud is doing what I'm talking about:
https://forvo.com/word/didn't/

On this page the pronunciations by Azaleabud and Kae4 are downvoted. I've definitely heard those pronunciations by native speakers of English, so I'm wondering what it means that they're downvoted. Maybe that they're less close to someone's idea of standard pronunciation?

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firecat (attention machine in need of calibration)

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