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I pronounce "privatize" as "praiv^taiz" [corrected by editing] instead of "private eyes"(praiv^daiz) [corrected by editing] despite the t being in the unemphasized, second syllable and appearing in between two vowels, and "lantern" with the t plosion, despite an n being in front of the t and a vowel appearing afterward, like "center" which is aptly pronounced "cenner" in accordance with the rule.

The pronunciation rules that I looked up seemed to suggest that "private eyes" and "lan-ern" were the correct pronunciations. But this is not the case among English speakers (or at least that's how I suspect things to be, having attended English speaking schools for a decade).

Why is this "t" rule not applied consistently? Or is my pronunciation wrong? My pronunciation seems to be in line with the dictionary's standard one at least.

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  • Look up the alveolar tap/flap (that's not a D in private eyes) and secondary stress syllables. This might clear things up. Those phonetic spellings are confusing. The vowels in the first and last syllables should be the same. – GArthurBrown Jul 21 '21 at 22:38
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    Can you give a link to your sources that you 'looked up'? – Mitch Jul 21 '21 at 23:00
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    You are making the mistake of expecting English spelling to be an entirely correct and consistent representation of pronunciation, this is far from the case. The 'rules' of pronunciation are not unbreakable rules but, rather, guides. You will find that different dialects of English have different pronunciations even when they use the same spellings. Also a lot, but by no means all, of the inconsistency is a result of pronunciation changing over time but the dictionary spellings remaining the same. Use the rules as a guide but learn pronunciation orally. Sorry, that's how English works. – BoldBen Jul 21 '21 at 23:37
  • English pronunciation is just inconsistent. – George White Jul 21 '21 at 23:49
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    The question should have been flagged 'American English'. As a BrE speaker I certainly don't say 'cenner'! – Kate Bunting Jul 22 '21 at 07:55

1 Answers1

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The rules for /t/ being voiced and "flapped"/"tapped" are not very simple.

For /t/ in the middle of a word, the stress level of the following vowel is what’s relevant. In “privatize”, that’s not the vowel in the second syllable, it’s the vowel in the third syllable. This vowel is an unreduced diphthong and so some analyses treat the syllable as having some amount of stress.

Flapping does occur in atomize and automate, where the /t/ is before a reduced and fully unstressed vowel.

Flapping of /nt/ is optional. I don’t know what might make it more common in some words then in others, but it is usually always possible to use voiceless, unflapped t after /n/.

Related:

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