Like either, economics, apricot, and pajamas.įeature image: “Hong Kong Park 44” by Wilfredor. It is only a matter of time, I suspect, before Merriam Webster drops the obelus and recognizes often as one of those polyphonic words with alternative standard pronunciations. That’s something to investigate down the road. ![]() Perhaps there is even a pattern to the switching. From what I hear, off-ten is the predominant form, and I sometime notice speakers switching from one pronunciation to the other. When people speak in public, my ears are tuned to how they pronounced often. The ÷ sign (called an obelus mark) indicates “a pronunciation variant that occurs in educated speech but that is considered by some to be questionable or unacceptable.” It cites the pronunciation as \ˈȯ-fən, ÷ˈȯf-tən\. Today’s Merriam Webster online dictionary is more realistic and, thankfully, less judgmental. In the United States, The Harper Dictionary of Contemporary Usage (from 1975) was flat out prescriptive: “ Often should be pronounced OFF-un, not OFF-tun, though the latter pronunciation is often affected, especially by singers.” They must have consulted the OED. Ross in his 1954 paper on social practices in England simply said that offen was upper-class pronunciation and off-ten was not. Wyld called the off-ten pronunciation “vulgar” and “sham-refined” in his 1932 Universal Dictionary of the English Language, and Alan C. Henry Fowler’s Dictionary of Modern English Usage spared the singers, but called off-ten a pronunciation practiced by “academic speakers who affect a more precise enunciation than their neighbours…
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