5. Pronunciation of 't'

5. Pronunciation of 't'

In British English t is usually pronounced quite clearly but in many instances of American speech, when it is not the initial consonant in a word, it may either be pronounced like a d or it may disappear entirely. When the t occurs between two vowel sounds, it is often pronounced as d: bitter, latter, shutter, water, waiting, writing, etc. In Britain, on the other hand, the pronunciation of such pairs as bitter/bidder, latter/ladder, shutter/shudder, waiter/wader, writing/ riding I eaves no room for ambiguity, even when the context is unknown. The t in American speech tends to disappear after nasal sounds like m, n, and ng. Thus, words like dentist, twenty, understand, intercontinental become dennist, twenny, unnerstann, innerconninennal. The only comparable phenomenon in Britain, in well-defined areas like Cockney London, Glasgow in Scotland, or Ballymena in Northern Ireland, is the use of the glottal stop to replace the t in words like butter, matter, water, and so on.