Heard on The Judges: *not* a beast, then?

[Wilson Gray]

Late-thirty-ish, black female speaker from North Carolina, describing
niece's boyfriend:

"He's [@ bis], your honor. I don't mean that he's [@ bis] like a
*monster*, [gestures with clawed fingers] _aarrgghh!_. I mean, he's [@
bis]. Like, he has [@ bisItI], your honor. He weighs 800 lbs."

The niece very clearly uses "ahnt" [ant'], with released final T.

Since that's the pronunciation that I personally prefer, I'd like to
be able to agree that that pronunciation is "standard" in BE, as is
usually said. But, IME, whether a person is going to use _ahnt_ or
_ant_ can't be predicted with the least degree of reliability on the
basis of race.

Youneverknow.

--
-Wilson
-----
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-Mark Twain

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