Listening to Pundents?

[steepholm]

Americans! Do people in your country generally pronounce "pundits" as "pundents"? I ask, because I heard it not once but twice in this video. First at 0.57, the female Trump supporter says it. I dismissed that, because of course anyone can stumble over their words, especially in moments of high excitement (and she seems as if much of her life is

Comments

[beesandbrews]

Pundits isn't really a word that flows trippingly off the tongue. I think it tends to get mispronounced because of that. Although I have to say in the male presenter's case, it sounds to me like he is saying pundits, but the word is malformed by his accent.

[dorsetgirl]

That's odd, because I think pundit is a lot easier to say than pundent! I find it difficult enough anyway to give full value to a final 't' without sounding like something out of elocution lessons, but it's even harder after an 'n'. The American accent handles these things differently though, dragging out the final syllable more than we do.

I think the presenter said it properly the first time (sorry, the video won't play again for me so I haven't got the exact time) and then said pundents where you indicated, at 2:36.

[eavanmoore]

So he did. Interesting.

[muckefuck]

Well, there's more than one type of ease, isn't there? Pundit has the advantage of having only one consonant cluster in the word rather than two. But pundent is analogous to a large category of agent nouns formed by means of a suffix -ent or -ant (e.g. student, patient, informant), which probably makes it easier to remember.

[electricdruid]

I have never heard it pronounced this way. And I also feel that "pundits" is a lot easier to pronounce.
I'm a NJ native.

[eavanmoore]

That is really, really weird. Before listening to those points in the clip I was ready to be all like, "Oh it's probably just a nasal American accent." But no. I've never heard a pronunciation like this before.

[steepholm]

A friend elsewhere just told me that it was a Palinism, which tip-off led me to this blog. So I'm not the first one to notice it, but it does seem to be associated with the right wing of the Republican party.

[eavanmoore]

Huh.

[muckefuck]

It's not difficult to find examples of intrustive n in English. Some have become part of the standard language (e.g. nightingale, messenger, glance). Two which I had when I was younger were forsynthia for forsythia and taunt for taut. I'm pretty sure I got the latter from my father, as I seem to recall other examples of intrustive n in his speech, but none that I can bring to mind at this moment.

[mack_the_spoon]

Never heard it, and would find it bizarre. But yes, as has been mentioned, intrusive 'n' does happen somewhat frequently in English.