Wednesday 29 December 2010

Her Majesty's often

In his blog #322 Jack Windsor Lewis published his observations of the Queen's pronunciation of often in her Christmas broadcast of 2010 in which Her Majesty uses the adverb often twice (Jack - where's the third token?) by pronouncing it as /ɔːfən/ in
  •  "very often, they like each other too"
and /ɔːfn̩/ in
  • "Sportsmen and women often speak of the enormous pride".
I checked the Xmas addresses of 1957, 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008 for all instances of often:
1957: /ɔːfn̩/
2005: /ɔːfn̩/, /ɔːfn̩/
2006: /ɔːfn̩/
2007: /ɔːfn̩/
2008: /ɔːfn̩/, /ɔːfn̩/
The Queen is very consistent in how she pronounces the adverb, and /ɔːfn̩/ as well as /ɔːfən/ suit her age.
Learners of English as a foreign language who have not yet reached the age of retirement should refrain from adopting this variant.

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