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Hi,Final 'ng' pronounced as 'n'This feature is sometimes called 'g-dropping', and      takes place in gerunds, where the final 'ng' is pronounced [ n ] . This is a very common      feature in the speech of several Americans, no matter ethnical background.I read that, and I was wondering... Is it true that many Americans do that? That article was about Ebonics, by the way. I think I often pronounce final NG's as N's. I'll give you some examples:Going down ---&gt; Goin downBending over ---&gt; Bendin overNot sure I can do it any other way, unless I pronounce the words separately. However, this doesn't apply to all NG's all the time. I think "going crazy" is not usually "goin crazy", for me.In other cases, I can't make up my mind. One of this cases is "going south".Any advice? Thank you

Clive · Accepted Answer

Hi,

It's extremely common. I'd say that everybody does it a great deal. In writing, such speech is indicated by replacing the 'g' with an apostrophe.

Clive

Kooyeen · Answer

Ah, thanks. Interesting, I don't tend to talk "black" then...

CalifJim · Answer

It sounds awful. Stop it at once!

CJ

Nona the brit · Answer

It's very common in the UK too (nothing to do with the colour of the speaker).

Kooyeen · Answer

CalifJimIt sounds awful. Stop it at once!

Holy cannoli!
Thank you all for your opinions!

A Brit and a Canadian-(Brit?) against a Western American... hmmm, what should I do? The problem is that it seems to me that an N instead of an NG is unavoidable and natural in certain cases...

Bending over ---> bendy no ver...

But, as always, I'm trying to repeat some words... and now I'm not so sure it always happens. Definitley if I try to say something fast, though. But you know, I've always had problems with final N and NG sounds... not that I can't do them, but it seems to me that sometimes that distinction is not very clear (in English at least, in my dialect there are only final NG's and final N's would be noticeable and wrong).

PS: after some tests, I think I might tend to pronounce NG correctly, but the final part sometimes turn into an N sound because of what follows.

Anonymous · Answer

"g-dropping" is a misleading term, since there is no /g/ to be dropped... going has /?/ and goin has /n/. It's a question of where you put your tongue at the end of the word. The /n/ pronunciation is the more conservative one, since it is derived from the older -ende suffix - the -ing suffix was used later.

More info

Kooyeen · Answer

Alienvoord"g-dropping" is a misleading term, since there is no /g/ to be dropped... going has /?/ and goin has /n/. It's a question of where you put your tongue at the end of the word.

Hi Alienvoord,
yes, I know. Thanks for the link, here's an interesting fact from that link:

Today, nearly all English speakers drop g's sometimes, but in a given speech community, the proportion varies systematically depending on formality, social class, ***, and other variables as well.

That's what I wanted to know... even though Jim doesn't seem to be very happy about it...

Lil&apos; Ruby Rose · Answer

We all do it.  But it's sometimes seen as being rather low class and common in the UK.

Clive · Answer

Hi LLR,

it's sometimes seen as being rather low class and common in the UK.

Interesting comment. When I lived in Britain, dropping 'g's was also characteristic of the upper classes (the huntin', shootin' and fishin' people). Either things have changed, or else you are not associating with the right kind of people.

I found this in the net at http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000878.html (The bolding used is by me.)

Historically, g-dropping is actually a more conservative pattern. The English present participle suffix was originally pronounced with a coronal, not a velar nasal: in early middle English, this inflection was -inde or -ende. There was a derivational ending -ung for making nouns out of verbs, which produced words like present-day "building." These eventually merged into the modern -ing suffix. In 19th- and early 20th-century England, the g-dropping pattern (which really was the "not g-adding pattern") marked the rural aristrocracy as well as the lower classes. Thus this passage from John Galsworthy's 1931 novel Maid in Waiting:

'Where on earth did Aunt Em learn to drop her g's?'
'Father told me once that she was at a school where an undropped "g" was worse than a dropped "h". They were bringin' in a country fashion then, huntin' people, you know.'

Best wishes, Clive

Anonymous · Answer

True enough, Clive, but it would really only be used to parody that County House set.  I think the example from your quotation reflects the implication that it would be rather surprising for someone without a regional or working-class accent to drop their 'g's (or not to add in their 'g's!).

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