[ncmncm]

We all have our faults. But we don't need to promote them.

There is also no "t" sound in "often", never was. Some officious busybody thought "offen" and "oft" ought to be related. so put "often" in a dictionary. Now people who don't know any better pronounce it. But it's rare to find anybody trying, foolishly, to say the "b" in debt and doubt.

I doubt anybody tries to pronounce the "l" in "could". That one appears to be the product of busybody typesetters, imagining some parallel with "should" and "would" (related to "shall" and "will"), which also do not get any "l" sound; but "could" is related to "can".

[boondaburrah]

There very much is a 't' sound in 'often,' but it depends on how you talk (whether or not there was before, language changes). If you're saying native speakers are saying it wrong, then I don't know what to tell you.

[vehemenz]

Maybe you're young or speak a nonconventional dialect. In my local dialect (Midwest American), the "t" is almost never pronounced. I wouldn't say it's wrong to hammer the "t" home, but it sounds clumsy to my ears.

[ncmncm]

Linguists call it "spelling pronunciation": pronouncing as written, pedantically, despite not hearing it spoken that way. It's silly, but less silly than many other things. Of course, the more it happens, the more other people hear it that way and come to believe it is normal.

In some times and places it becomes normal.

[kwhitefoot]

I would only pronounce the t when emphasizing the word.

[boondaburrah]

That and if you need to hit the back of an auditorium without a mic.

[thaumasiotes]

> There is also no "t" sound in "often", never was. Some officious busybody thought "offen" and "oft" ought to be related. so put "often" in a dictionary. Now people who don't know any better pronounce it.

Hmm? The etymology dictionaries don't appear to back you up on this.

> often (adv.): "repeatedly, again and again, many times, under many circumstances," mid-13c., an extended form of oft, in Middle English typically before vowels and h-, probably by influence of its opposite, seldom (Middle English selden).

( https://www.etymonline.com/word/often )

> From Middle English often, alteration (with final -n added due to analogy with Middle English selden (“seldom”)) of Middle English ofte, oft, from Old English oft (“oft; often”)

( https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/often )

Where did you get the idea that they weren't related?

[ncmncm]

The words are obviously related. But that doesn't mean one came from the other.

[thaumasiotes]

> The words are obviously related.

You just said they weren't...?

[jwilk]

https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/correct-pronun...

> Often has a medial /t/ that, like similar words such has "hasten" and "soften," was once pronounced and is now typically silent.

[srcreigh]

Same with Toronto. It's really more like Turonno