Innernet

A forum for discussing US dialects (accents).
shacolourdes
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Innernet

Postby shacolourdes » Sun Dec 23, 2007 12:10 am

Ok, so I'm from North Jersey (which I find interestingly enough that I say "North Jersey" rather than "Northern New Jersey"... bitter rivalry, I guess...) Anyhow, everywhere I go around here, whenever the internet is mentioned in conversation, it is pronounced "innernet". Now, it's not to say that this is the only word pronounced without the "t", but it's the only one I could think of off-hand.
Also, I find it strange that we don't pronounce our "t"'s around here correctly, turning them into "d"'s.
For instance, "William's mittens were too tight." becomes "William's middens were too tight."
Another "t"-related aspect is that we don't pronounce "t"'s when they are at the end of a word. "Heat" becomes "hea-" with a drop at the end that almost makes a faint gutteral noise or click.
Anybody know what I'm talking about?

sluggo
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Postby sluggo » Sun Dec 23, 2007 1:55 am

Betcha fi' dollurs I know what you're talking about. :wink:

Same thing around Philly (phully) really, where the neighbor is South Jersey. And in some of these (e.g. the guttural noise) you're talking about a glottal stop, also used for the middle Ts of mittens.

Good regional examples, though I think 'innernet' is fairly widespread lazy speech.
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shacolourdes
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Postby shacolourdes » Sun Dec 23, 2007 12:18 pm

...I think 'innernet' is fairly widespread lazy speech.
I'm not so sure about that one. I travel fairly often and I've noticed that people do a double-take when I say "innernet" or "middens". They understand me but I never hear anyone else say it- especially in the South.
I have cousins in Georgia and ~pardon my singing~ DOWN IN THE HEART-UH TEXAS! :D who've gotten in debates with me about my pronunciation of certain words (or wards, as they calls'em down yahnduh)...
The only people that I hear pronounce these sounds are my relatives around the country who once resided in NJ.
My cousin Charlito's friends always poke fun at him because he uses that glottal stop you mentioned (yet, oddly enough, they don't notice it when he says "dawgs" instead of "dahgs")...

Funny stuff, regional differences, eh?
shaCOLOURdes ~ colour in shades...
there's a recessive "ll" gene somewhere in our DNA.

sluggo
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Postby sluggo » Sun Dec 23, 2007 1:21 pm

Well I dunno, it seems most times if someone is particular to accentuate the middle T of internet it's the exception rather than the rule, from what I hear. But it's robably worth a poll.

Maybe I misunderstood your mittens though. If you're saying middens, that is indeed at variance with, for lack of a better term, "standard" national USEnglish, which usually employs the glottal stop: "MIT-Ns". How do you pronounce gotten?

I notice a similar dichotomy sometimes in words like wouldn't and couldn't, when a speaker inserts a vowel: "could-ent". This seems to appear more often in song, where the musical accent may not fit the syllable perfectly (though the standard "Could-Nt" is not using a glottal stop*, I'm not sure what the proper phonological term is here). It can also serve to clarify the meaning, since the word doesn't carry acoustically all that well without the inserted vowel.
*though there are speakers who do use a GS here, a third pronunciation you've probably heard as well.

I suspect accenting the T in internet is usually used for the same purpose, to emphasize the word within its context- or at least it has that effect. Generally with the inter- prefix, it seems to me we tend to elide the T when it's not accented: interview, intercourse, interlock, unless we're deliberately stressing the inter-ness of the concept... it's a very relative thing though, I guess we do generally replace the dentality of the T with a little aspiration just to mark it, and based on what I know of midAtlantic speech, I'd guess you're dropping that little aspiration as well as the dentality and maybe that's what flags you.

Don't know if this makes sense, but I just hope you're not going on the internets with mittens on :P ...
Stop! Murder us not, tonsured rumpots! Knife no one, fink!

shacolourdes
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Postby shacolourdes » Sun Dec 23, 2007 1:43 pm

Well I dunno, it seems most times if someone is particular to accentuate the middle T of internet it's the exception rather than the rule, from what I hear. But it's robably worth a poll.

Maybe I misunderstood your mittens though. If you're saying middens, that is indeed at variance with, for lack of a better term, "standard" national USEnglish, which usually employs the glottal stop: "MIT-Ns". How do you pronounce gotten?

I notice a similar dichotomy sometimes in words like wouldn't and couldn't, when a speaker inserts a vowel: "could-ent". This seems to appear more often in song, where the musical accent may not fit the syllable perfectly (though the standard "Could-Nt" is not using a glottal stop*, I'm not sure what the proper phonological term is here). It can also serve to clarify the meaning, since the word doesn't carry acoustically all that well without the inserted vowel.
*though there are speakers who do use a GS here, a third pronunciation you've probably heard as well.

I suspect accenting the T in internet is usually used for the same purpose, to emphasize the word within its context- or at least it has that effect. Generally with the inter- prefix, it seems to me we tend to elide the T when it's not accented: interview, intercourse, interlock, unless we're deliberately stressing the inter-ness of the concept... it's a very relative thing though, I guess we do generally replace the dentality of the T with a little aspiration just to mark it, and based on what I know of midAtlantic speech, I'd guess you're dropping that little aspiration as well as the dentality and maybe that's what flags you.

Don't know if this makes sense, but I just hope you're not going on the internets with mittens on :P ...
Everything you just said made a lot of sense!
As for the pronunciation of "gotten", I use the glottal stop or the "t" to "d" issue; actually, come to think of it, I use a little bit of both in my pronunciation! :shock:
Eh, it happens.

As far as putting emphasis on the "inter" of things, I can see where you're coming from that, but I do have to argue that it's really just the natural emphasis of syllables there, and not just utilizing the "t" because we can (if I made any sense whatsoever in that last run-on)...

Just another thing that comes to mind is that when reuttering the same sound, the second utterance loses its boldness. For instance "tea time": the second "t", the word "time" has the glottal stop for me.


Yet another thing I'd like to discuss is why this glottal stop even occured around these parts. Does German have this issue (being that this area had a high German/Scottish population during colonial times)?
shaCOLOURdes ~ colour in shades...
there's a recessive "ll" gene somewhere in our DNA.

sluggo
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Postby sluggo » Sun Dec 23, 2007 1:57 pm


...For instance "tea time": the second "t", the word "time" has the glottal stop for me.
I have to wonder if we speak of the same thing here as glottal stops. Are you saying "tee-'ime" with no 2nd T?

I'm really curious now after researching to no avail, on what the term is for the voiced-as-opposed-to-glottal d>n sound in couldn't...
... it's robably worth a poll.
Voilá, Gailr... :wink:
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gailr
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Postby gailr » Sun Dec 23, 2007 3:17 pm

Voilá, Gailr... :wink:
I was out and missed this the first couple times around. Good to see you're checking your own paper. But I'm sure it was there and you just weren't...plosiving...it? Or mebbe yer were on the intarrrwebs wif mi'ens?


shacolourdes: I had a coworker of PennDutch descent. Despite living in the mittest of the mitwest, she wore middens. (ew!)

sluggo
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Postby sluggo » Mon Dec 24, 2007 1:35 am

Voilá, Gailr... :wink:
I was out and missed this the first couple times around. Good to see you're checking your own paper. But I'm sure it was there and you just weren't...plosiving...it? Or mebbe yer were on the intarrrwebs wif mi'ens?

Very magnanimous of ye, considering with robably in play you could've given me a good dressing-down
:roll:
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Stargzer
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Postby Stargzer » Mon Dec 24, 2007 10:47 pm

...

I'm not so sure about that one. I travel fairly often and I've noticed that people do a double-take when I say "innernet" or "middens". ...
Uh, Midden is something else altogether. Old mittens may end up in one ...
Funny stuff, regional differences, eh?
"Eh?" at the end of a sentence? The Americans who escaped from the Embassy in Tehran to the Candian Embassy had to learn to say "Eh?" at the end of their sentences to pass for Canadians to escape Iran.
Regards//Larry

"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."
-- Attributed to Richard Henry Lee

sluggo
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Postby sluggo » Tue Dec 25, 2007 1:16 pm

...

I'm not so sure about that one. I travel fairly often and I've noticed that people do a double-take when I say "innernet" or "middens". ...
Uh, Midden is something else altogether....
It seems most unseemly to be wearing that.
Funny stuff, regional differences, eh?
"Eh?" at the end of a sentence? The Americans who escaped from the Embassy in Tehran to the Candian Embassy had to learn to say "Eh?" at the end of their sentences to pass for Canadians to escape Iran.
All this time I thought they had it rough, now we find out they were at the Embassy of Candy. :shock:

Canada: C, eh?... N, eh?.. D, eh?
Stop! Murder us not, tonsured rumpots! Knife no one, fink!

shacolourdes
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Postby shacolourdes » Sat Dec 29, 2007 12:27 pm

...

I'm not so sure about that one. I travel fairly often and I've noticed that people do a double-take when I say "innernet" or "middens". ...
Uh, Midden is something else altogether. Old mittens may end up in one ...
Funny stuff, regional differences, eh?
"Eh?" at the end of a sentence? The Americans who escaped from the Embassy in Tehran to the Candian Embassy had to learn to say "Eh?" at the end of their sentences to pass for Canadians to escape Iran.
I guess "eh" be fightin' words!!!!
Hehehe... I didn't think that anyone would care that I used "eh" at the end of my semi-rheutorical question!
O well, c'est la vie... :wink:
shaCOLOURdes ~ colour in shades...
there's a recessive "ll" gene somewhere in our DNA.

Stargzer
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Postby Stargzer » Mon Dec 31, 2007 4:43 am

...
O well, c'est la vie... :wink:
Oh! That's from the part of Canada that doesn't want to be part of Canada! :lol:
Regards//Larry

"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."
-- Attributed to Richard Henry Lee

shacolourdes
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Re: Innernet

Postby shacolourdes » Mon Dec 31, 2007 7:20 pm

...so I'm from North Jersey (which I find interestingly enough that I say "North Jersey" rather than "Northern New Jersey"... bitter rivalry, I guess...)
...
O well, c'est la vie... :wink:
Oh! That's from the part of Canada that doesn't want to be part of Canada! :lol:
North Jersey, Canada, same difference. :P
shaCOLOURdes ~ colour in shades...
there's a recessive "ll" gene somewhere in our DNA.

Stargzer
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Re: Innernet

Postby Stargzer » Mon Dec 31, 2007 9:43 pm

... North Jersey, Canada, same difference. :P
Hey, I used to go on periodic business trips to a computer center in Carlstadt. We had great breakfasts at a little diner, the Colonial, in Lyndhurst, and good seafood at a place I thought was called The Barge, which was on a barge on the waterfront, but I can't seem to find it now.

However, at the computer center they made sure we knew to use the bottled water to make the coffee, not the tap water.

And Northern NJ is the only place I remember seeing those jug-handle intersections for making left turns.
Regards//Larry

"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."
-- Attributed to Richard Henry Lee

sluggo
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Re: Innernet

Postby sluggo » Tue Jan 01, 2008 12:32 am

...
However, at the computer center they made sure we knew to use the bottled water to make the coffee, not the tap water.
They have to tell people that??
Stop! Murder us not, tonsured rumpots! Knife no one, fink!


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