I notice this trend in the last few years. I don’t know if it’s always been there and I just didn’t pay attention, or it’s some kind of new accent.

Words like:

* mountain
* kitten
* Brandon
* button
* shorten

It sounds like the sound of “d” and “t” is completely skipped.

Is this new to American accent?

Is there a regional pattern?

15 comments

  1. No, it’s not new, nor specific to American English. It’s just a kinda fast-talking slurred-words thing. For example, I usually say ‘scuse me instead of excuse me. I don’t know why 🤷‍♂️

    Wanna…kinda…gonna…c’mon…y’all… it’s like that.

    I’m neither a linguist nor knowledgeable about regionalisms, though, so I dunno*

    *Primarily British example

  2. T softening is a characteristic of American English.

    Where British English tends to really noticeably pronounce T’s, the US tends to reduce them to soft “d” sounds. It’s not really new, and it’s often something taught to people trying to imitate American accents. For example, where I live in Mexico, call center employees use this as one of their tricks to try to pass for American.

    Edit because a few people of mentioned this: some British dialects omit the T entirely in a process called glottalization. Almost American dialect does a thing called flapping, where it pronounces D and T in the middle of words with the same soft D sound.

  5. This is a feature I associate primarily with British English. I do know that American English has a habit of switching mid-word “t” to “d” but that doesn’t sound like what you are describing. It might be limited to a narrow region.

  7. I’ve always done that. Just purely out of curiosity, where in the US do you live where you hear that “t” in “mountain” or “kitten” voiced? PNW? East coast?

  8. Those are called glottal stops. Glottal stops are more common in British English than American English I think. For example, Ricky Gervais does glottal stops all the time. I don’t think I’ve ever heard him say a “t” in the middle of a word.

    In the US, this tends to be a feature of the Utah accent, from what I understand. That makes sense because Utah experienced some of the most recent (mid-19th century) mass-immigration from Britain.

  9. Not new at all. I grew up in the deep South (east) where generations of residents have never pronounced any G sound at the and of a word.

    There’s a very short video on the accent/language I grew up speaking:

    [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03iwAY4KlIU&t=165s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03iwAY4KlIU&t=165s)

    HINT: works like bear, chair, car, dare, far, hair… all typically pronounced as b-a-r with a very hard R at the end. Generations growing up after the early 90’s were exposed to cable TV. Many now have internet access at home – cell phone service is spotty at best. These residents have grown up speaking local English and what is called Media or Journalism English. I find I automatically switch accents depending on to whom I am speaking.

  10. That’s not at all a new thing, nor is it exclusive to American English.

  11. Sounds like the northern halves of Alabama/Georgia. Atlanta is pronounced Adlana. See Lucas Black and Channing Tatum for thicker versions (Both from between Bham and Hville).

  12. I first realized this was a thing after I lived near a town called Nanton. Think about pronouncing the “t” when you say it – it sounds off compared to Nan’-in.

  14. Nothing is up with it, replacing /t/ with a glottal stop (the ‘sound’ in the middle of ‘uh-oh’) either before /n/ or at word boundaries has been a normal feature of General American English for at least 50 years. It has been seen in the UK for around 100 years before that, especially in Cockney speech.

    Look up t-glottalization if you really want, but the technical jargon might be overwhelming.

  15. It’s always been around lol where have you been? Probably been around since we had these American accents 😂

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