How should often be pronounced in formal speech? "off-ten" or "of-fen"?
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"Should" is inappropriate in the question. Both pronunciations occur. In the 19th century /ɔ:fn/ ("aufn") was the normal pronunciation, so in The Pirates of Penzance, there is an elaborate joke on the confusion of 'often' and 'orphan'. |
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In my dialect, it's "I of-en go to the store." If you say "off-ten" it's like you are enunciating particularly clearly for some reason. It's possible that "off-ten" is normal in other regions, though. |
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I've seen the common pronunciation change in my region (American English) in the last 20 years or so. As a kid, we never pronounced the "t", but this has become much more common. Current dictionaries will give both pronunciations. An old Funk and Wagnall's I have from the early 90s lists only the /ɔ:fn/ ("aufn") pronunciation. I also notice that the younger generation is more likely to pronounce the "t". But for some reason, in "soften" the "t" is not pronounced. It gets weirder though because we do pronounce the "t" in both "soft" and "oft", so I would just go with whichever pronunciation of "often" you prefer. |
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There's a lot of variation because of the specific sounds involved. "o" in this case can be pronounced as [ a ], [ ɔ: ] or [ ɑ: ]. "en", while usually just a syllabic [ n ], can also be pronounced [ ɪn ]. In Southern American and urban English accents, "en" frequently becomes a syllabic [ m ], especially when followed by a word that begins with a bilabial consonant. In any accent, the "t" is usually elided, but when present it's usually a true sharp [ t ] rather than, say, a flap [ ɾ ]. Of course, not all combinations of these sounds are valid. |
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