"di?nt" (with glottal stop)

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On Nov 15, 2004, at 9:46 PM, Benjamin Zimmer wrote:

> In recent years the exaggeratedly glottalized "Oh no you/he/she
> di[?]n't"
> (as a response of outrage, or mock outrage) has become a hackneyed
> catchphrase.  My sense is that the expression had its origin in hiphop
> and
> then started turning up on those "trash TV" shows in the late '90s
> (with
> appropriate hand gestures and head-bobbing).  From there it became a
> source of mockery for white Americans...

just a warning...  the spelling <di'nt> (or similar things) is often
used to code a pronunciation in which the intervocalic voiced tap is
simply deleted.  not the same thing as a pronunciation with an
intervocalic glottalish bit.

i suspect that ben zimmer's examples include some with an intervocalic
glottal stop and some with no intervocalic consonant at all.  this is
not to deny that some of them have glottal stops, possibly from a
catchphrase.

arnold