Originally Posted by
Alondra
Sloppy diction. There is no reason they should sound the same, no matter where they fall in the sentence. Although, in something like "The baby can't talk yet." it could be elision with the two t's together, but again... sloppy diction. Sometimes we're forced to depend for meaning on other (limiting) words in the sentence, like "yet" in that sentence.
My English step daughter was here for a visit and we went to a Chinese restaurant. Asked what she wanted to drink, Hannah replied "Water" with the T clearly pronounced as a T ... not as a D as so many American's do. The waitress (English was not her mother tongue) could not understand Hannah and I finally had to 'translate' pronouncing it as "Wader".
The change of the T to a D is a common diction problem here and living with Brit's I have become more aware of it, and have for the most part corrected myself.
If anyone is interested (BTW - that word has always been a pet peeve of mine, there are 4 distinct syllables, the word is not "intrested" it is "interested") in the evolution of the English language I highly recommend "The Adventure of English" by Melvyn Bragg ... in fact, I recommend you LISTEN to it as opposed to reading it, as you can hear the diction. And yes, the language continues to evolve (devolve?). Speaking to my kids in England I get the feeling that there is a definite American influence. It is not uncommon to hear them talk of candy instead of sweets, and it's not just when they are talking to us, I see it in their face-book posts to others.
One last thing ... a bone of contention between myself and my English husband. He will often chide me about the way American's have "butchered" the English language (shedule as opposed to schedule, and many others), and each time I can end the conversation with one word ... Grossvenor. For those of you who are not familiar with the word, Grossvenor is pronounced "Grovenor" and is the name of the square where the US Embassy is located in London. Why they thought it was a good idea to stick a couple of S's where they don't belong is a mystery to me. And why the heck is Leichester pronounced as "Lester" in England??? We've both done a bit of butchering me thinks.