Re: Woody or tinny?

Daniel Andreasson wrote:
>Another interesting brit-like thing about that dialect
>is the use of /?/ to replace /t/ in certain surroundings.
>I couldn't figure out the rule, but it seems to have
>something [sV?m=] to do with a following nasal.>

It isn't quite "brit-like", in that we don't replace /t/ with /?/ in
strictly intervocalic environments.  The following nasal is most relevant;
with a preceding nasal too, it's merely reinforced.  Generally, it involves
...V(n)tVn# I think:  Clinton, Hinton; button, kitten, written, cotton etc.
But not "bottom" or "butting" (but if you drop your g's, "butting" will come
out like "button", likewise "sittin', hittin' " etc.).

The variant [sV~?m=] probably began as a fast-speech form and is still
common in both Black and Anglo speech.   I've been hearing it all my life,
and it was the bane of my grade-school teachers in the 40s-- g-dropping was
a major sin; sometimes it appears in print (imitation of dialect-- I'd bet
as early as Mark Twain) as "sumpn" or some such.....