a while ago I was having a conversation with my sister in which I was like “you know that thing nerds do when they talk? how they release the t’s at the end of words?” and she was like “… no”
so I feel vindicated to learn that this is a known fact in the literature (and in addition to it being a nerd thing it is also a Jewish thing apparently)
(also whenever I spend too much time around rationalists/EAs I start doing the /t/ release thing too)
Wait, so what exactly does “release” mean here? I hang around with enough nerds/am nerdy enough myself that I suspect I’d know this thing if I heard it, but I’m drawing a blank. Anyone have an example of a word where the t is often “released” (or better yet, a link to a video where someone does it)?
“Plato” has a “release” in most everybody’s speech.
In most American dialects, the letter “t” between vowels is pronounced very differently from the letter “t” at the beginning of a word. Between vowels, “t” merges with “d” into an identical-sounding consonant that’s called an alveolar flap. So “writing” and “riding” are pronounced almost the same (the consonants actually are the same but the preceding vowels may be slightly different in length; this is more advanced stuff). Often people don’t consciously notice that they pronounce “writing” and “riding” the same way, but if they listen carefully to themselves they’re forced to admit that.
Fun fact: the word “Plato” is apparently unique in resisting this evolution. It is not pronounced like “play-dough”.
So if you’re like most speakers of North American dialects, you pronounce “writing” and “riding” virtually the same, but “Plato” and “play-dough” differently; you might say your /t/ has a “release” in “Plato”. Now suppose that you consciously start pronouncing everyday words like “writing” the same way as “Plato”. That would be an example of the affectation discussed in the article linked by the OP. It may or may not sound “British” to you.
The OP actually talks about “the end of words”, which may be a related-but-different thing to what the article they link talks about. At the end of a word, /t/ is never an alveolar flap to begin with, but the usual explosion of air that follows it may be lessened or omitted in many contexts. I’m guessing the OP refers to an affectation where /t/ is especially carefully articulated at the end of a word, and that’s the “hyperarticulation” the linked article talks about.
Thanks for the explanation! After we talked about that paper in class I was googling to find more about /t/ release but most of what I could find was sociolinguistics papers that did not really explain the phonetics stuff?
So yeah, I guess what I was referring to was nerds aspirating /t/ at the end of words, though I think I also hear nerds releasing /t/ in the middle of words–both give the person’s speech the same hyperarticulation vibe.
(Weirdly, I’m pretty sure I do actually pronounce “Plato” the same as “play-dough”?)