From: utzoo!laura Newsgroups: net.nlang Title: often, government, toward(s) Article-I.D.: utzoo.2268 Posted: Mon Jul 12 06:21:41 1982 Received: Mon Jul 12 06:21:41 1982 References: watmath.2989 In Toronto, Ontario, I was taught to say 'often' with the 't'. Since my parents both pronounce the 't' this wasnt very hard for me, but I remember some of the other new-comers to the 'proper' school i went to had a horrible time until they learned to say 'ofTen', at least within the teacher's hearing! I remember one girl solved the problem by switching to the word 'usually'...but that didnt help her in reading, where she got rather picked upon... We also all had to say goverNment...so there ought to be a lot of 'N' pronouncers around here at any rate... Next question: How do you pronounce 'toward(s)'? Do you spell it with the 's'? Most Canadians do, and most Americans dont. I say to-ward, and not tord...but I hear a lot of 'tord' and have some strange memory that it is the preferred pronounciation. There are other ones ... 'route' to me rhymes with 'out' and not 'boot'... and I DONT pronounce the d in judge, and have tried to and doubt I could to save my life. Are there any other weird words out there which come to mind? laura creighton decvax!utzoo!laura