A while ago a friend told me that a linguist had told him that there was something about the dialect in Rhode Island that this expert wasn't aware of anywhere else. That is, Rhode Islanders frequently drop the T sound in words and replace it with a glottal stop.
Well, not to malign the expertise of this linguist, but I had to point out that this was also a practice in much of England. His wife's friend backed me up, pointing out that it was a subplot in Love, Actually.
I didn't say or even necessarily think this at the time, but it seems likely that my introduction to this dialect quirk was the Kinks. There's a good chance that Ray Davies was playing it up, but there'd have to be something real to play up to begin with.
2 comments:
The mystery of the glottal stop and who was first to use it instead of pronouncing the hard 't' is one I haven't considered previously. I've accepted it in the same way you won't correct a friend's pronunciation of particular words.
From what I understand the habit of dropping t's began in Scotland and was definitely prevalent in the north of England where my granddad spoke a version of English that was hard to understand. Since it's more common among working people it's generally considered to be low class.
Emphasizing his London working class background would be the main reason for Ray Davies to use exaggerated vowels and theatrical affectations. It adds rhythm and playful acting to his songs.
Some people can make certain sounds more easily than others, and so use them more often. The most obvious example might be click consonants, which are common in a number of African languages and practically unused elsewhere. There seem to be a lot of shades of this. You're right that there's no point in making anyone self-conscious about it.
For a long time Received Pronunciation was a strict standard in England and to a lesser extent Wales. Less so now, I think. I do tell people that Grandad might sound Scottish to American ears.
Davies seems to have figured out pretty early on that his Cockney roots could be an asset.
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