do you drop "t" in these words?

Hi everyone,

I've been visiting this forum for quite a while now and I have to admit that I've found answers to a lot of questions which I used to ask myself, so thanks to all of you who post here.

I remember one Canadian guy pronouncing "facts" as "fax"? Is it a common thing to pronouce it this way or is it just Canadian dialect?

He also used to pronounce other words without t's such as:

expects, predicts.

Actually, this Canadian guy was my tutor for some time and I picked up his pronunciation. Lately, I was talking to a girl from the UK and she said she's never heard anyone saying these words without t's.

Could anyone clear that thing up for me?

I think that T tends to disappear in fast speech, but generally doesn't disappear completely. The tongue moves like there's a T, but that doesn't mean it will come out well. So yeah, it's like it disappears, but not really. I think.

How about in "texts"? :-p

It's definitely not a Candian-only thing and it doesn't only happen in fast speech. Pronouncing "facts" without the t is actually the more common version throughout North America.

But it's not restricted to that one word; all instances of /kts/ are pronounced [ks]. Same with /pts/ (like in "he accepts") and /fts/ (like in "gifts"), which become [ps] and [fs] respectively.


<<I think that T tends to disappear in fast speech, but generally doesn't disappear completely. The tongue moves like there's a T, but that doesn't mean it will come out well. So yeah, it's like it disappears, but not really. I think. >>

what is this i dont even

Here in Milwaukee at least, the /t/ is elided in /kts/, /pts/, and /fts/ without exception in all but the most careful speech.

Fact/Facts, Predict/Predicts, Edict/Edicts, Accept/Accepts, Concept/Concepts...etc etc....England expects this day that every man shall do his duty....and so on in similar vein.....here in Albion's Isle the relative "t" is always present in the pronunciation even though it's barely perceptible.......it's* still there. As far as I can tell it's not even affected by Estuarisation to any great degree in these instances...it's* in the wrong position for that, but of course some Estuary speakers may not really be all that familiar with one or two of those words....they're probably not part of their every day conversation so not only would they not know how to spell them they wouldn't know what they mean either, but maybe I do some kind of injustice here.....

*Even here

In a combination of consonants like the ones you mention, the T is so reduced that it's either barely there or people just THINK it's there -- and that's very common across North America.

'Facts and fax' are pretty much homophonous for me and most Australians. A triple consonant cluster (k-t-s) generally requires more careful speech.