quote:Originally posted by Enigmatic: How else would one pronounce it? I'm guessing "Ha Track" would be the only way to say it without the stop, but have never heard that spoken.
--Enigmatic
Yup. Porter says it that way, as does my wife. :ninja: Surprisingly, there have been arguments on the forum about which way was correct. But OSC himself said that it's hat + rack (duh), not ha + track.
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I heard "Ha-Track" for the first time at KamaCon, and had to choke to avoid laughing. I mean, it's named after a river named after a hat-rack. A place to hang one's hat. Ergo Hat-rack.
Ha-Track is like a cross between an Objibwe place name and a piece of military hardware.
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quote:How does Hatrack have a glottal stop? I see (or hear) "uh oh" but not batman or hatrack.
Think of the word "button". While some people do pronounce the "t"s, most people just substitute a glottal stop so that it sounds like buh-un. Same with the word "mountain", many if not most say mouh-un.
So the idea is that people probably say "Hah-rack" instead of "Hat-rack", since that will inevitably *sound* like "Ha-track". Not much way to avoid it.
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The only way you can pronounce it as "ha-track" is if you syllabify it wrong.
Teshi: Is there a small puff of air when you pronounce the t? What is your tongue doing when you pronounce it?
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quote:Originally posted by twinky: Wait, does HaTrack rhyme with "attack?"
No. The stresses are different.
Ruth: That's because when tr appears at the beginning of a syllable, the t becomes more retroflex and the r devoices. They sort of blend together and sound like chr.
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quote:The only way you can pronounce it as "ha-track" is if you syllabify it wrong.
There isn't much (if any) difference between "ha-track" and "hat-rack" at the speed of spoken language. You have to slow it down artificially to tell the difference.
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Hm, I keep trying all these ways in my head and I can tell a difference between "ha-track" and "hat-rack" but I don't know how to explain it.
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Jon Boy: I know. I was just trying to clear up some confusion by people saying they pronounced a t sound when neither pronunciation actually has a t sound in it anywhere. I was also responding to twinky by demontrating that I emphasize the first syllable, unlike the pronunciation of attack.
And no, it's not a slant rhyme, though it may be a feminine rhyme. That is, the two words rhyme in the same way sing and going rhyme, or head and rioted.
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Huh, I've never heard of a "feminine rhyme" before. So by default are all other rhymes "masculine"?
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I know something about this. Americans say the T's (which are dental stops) in hatrack or button, but Brits often substitute a glottal stop. But Americans do have glottal stops in uh-oh and uh-uh.
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I say Ha-Track in my head as well. Whats weird is that when I say button, I don't include the T's or the I. It's more of a Buh-Nn when I say it.. I kind of have that "New Yorker Accent" though, so that could explain it.
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I can do that in a London accent but I wouldn't say you could particularly draw the line in that way.
Jon Boy: I pronounce the "t" like you would in "track", only with a short hiccup between "hat" "rack" so the words are more seperate. My tongue hits the top of my mouth behind my back teeth. It's really a difficult word to say. Ha-Track is much easier. Ha-rack is even easier.
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I say "hachrack" which is rendered here was ha-track. I know now that Hatrack is named after the river in the Alvin Maker series which was named because it was shaped like a hat-rack. However, when I first came here, I had read fewer of OSC's books, so I called it what it looked like. (I could never make it past Rev. Thrower in Seventh Son.) Now I'm simply in the habit of calling it Ha-Track, so why stop anyway? Though I do consciously call it Hat-rack when I meet up with other Hat-Rackers, as I did on accident the other day at a party.
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quote:The only way you can pronounce it as "ha-track" is if you syllabify it wrong.
There isn't much (if any) difference between "ha-track" and "hat-rack" at the speed of spoken language. You have to slow it down artificially to tell the difference.
Yeah there is. I can definitely hear the difference. If I'm feeling ambitious later, maybe I'll record some sound clips and post them.
Brinestone & twinky: A feminine rhyme is where the stress is not on the last syllable, like cleaver and reaver. A masculine rhyme has stress on the final syllable, like explode and decode.
Will B: Most Americans don't say the t; we insert a glottal stop instead.
Teshi: That explanation just confused me more. How do you pronounce the t like in track if you're inserting a "hiccup" between hat and rack? And what do you mean by hiccup, anyway?
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She may be mistaking the tongue on the dental ridge (used in the extended "n") as being for a "t". (For the word "button".) In actuality, it seems the "t" and "n" simply blend together with the "t" disappearing altogether. And, of course, there is no vowel between the two, except for the voicing on the "n".
Jon, I would be interested in what the difference is. Right now it seems to be only a psychological distinction, much as most people believe that they pronounce "bear" and "bare", "right" and "write", "loot" and "lute" differently, but really they pronounce them exactly the same unless they are consciously trying to make a distinction.
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quote:Originally posted by Zeugma: kojabu, my husband majored in Linguistics at Cornell, I bet you're taking a class from one of his old profs!
And he does love to talk about stops, oh my!
Actually, the prof is teaching Ling 101 for the first time at Cornell this year. She's from Ohio State, but I don't know if she has taught other classes at Cornell prior to this or not. Her last name is Amanda Miller.
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The difference is the people who say "hat-rack" never touch their tongue to the spot behind their teeth, whereas the people who say "ha-track" do. It's a completely different consonant sound there.
As for feminine rhyme, I distinctly remember a literature professor at BYU telling me my version. How do I know you're right and I'm wrong? Posts: 1903 | Registered: Sep 2003
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I was absolutely in love with glottal stops when I first learned there was a word for that sound.
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I realize that I absolutely pronounce the "t" in "hatrack." In fact, I almost say "Hat Rack" as two separate words.
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quote:Originally posted by Brinestone: As for feminine rhyme, I distinctly remember a literature professor at BYU telling me my version. How do I know you're right and I'm wrong?
Look it up in that huge literature anthology of mine. It's in the glossary.
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quote:The difference is the people who say "hat-rack" never touch their tongue to the spot behind their teeth, whereas the people who say "ha-track" do. It's a completely different consonant sound there.
So, it isn't a difference between "hat-rack" and "ha-track" but a difference between "hah-rack" and "ha-track". You seem to be saying that if a person chooses to enunciate the "t", they are automatically saying "ha-track". But I don't think that is the case at all (as in Tom's case.)
The fact is, Porter tends to enunciate more than the average Joe (his whole family does this) so he more likely to make the actual "t" sound when most people would glottal-stop. My favorite is the "plosive t" at the end of words. His brothers do that even more than he does. But they aren't married....
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It comes from the way you pronounce the t followed by an r. If you just say tr and hold it, it almost has the tch sound.
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quote:Think of the word "button". While some people do pronounce the "t"s, most people just substitute a glottal stop so that it sounds like buh-un. Same with the word "mountain", many if not most say mouh-un.
quote:The difference is the people who say "hat-rack" never touch their tongue to the spot behind their teeth, whereas the people who say "ha-track" do. It's a completely different consonant sound there.
This has ALWAYS bothered me. I'm from Hawaii, and we pronounce ALL our Ts: button, curtain, mitten, none of this "buh'n" crap. And what fascinates me is that people laugh and tell me I'm pronouncing it wrong/funny: but really, who's the one ignoring letters?
I pronounce "Hatrack" with the t, with no glottal stop, and it doesn't sound like "Ha-track." Am I really all that strange?
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