Pronuncations

[Robert Lawless]

For all you guys who teach college-age students and (if you're 
listening) hear them talk:  Is the pronunciation of often with "t" 
becoming more common with the younger generation? (I think most of us 
old foggies don't pronounce the "t".) I believe linguists refer to this 
as "spelling pronunciation." I suppose then that pronouncing sophomore 
as two syllables would be anti-spelling pronunciation. Although I and 
most of my colleagues pronounce it with three syllables, seemingly all 
the sophmores here use only two syllables. (My daughter, who's a 
sophmore in high school corrected me the other day when I called her a 
sophomore.)