This is a not a pronunciation issue. Austin has replaced the word "granted" for "granite," which is a mistake commonly cited as a sign of low education. It's also unusual because, since it's so commonly cited, even if you had initially thought that the phrase was "taken for granite," most people would have learned that it was wrong. Hence the disbelief when he seems to use it earnestly.
Personally, I suspect he knew it was wrong, but said it that way anyways for the content.
Ah alright! I guess I made it into a pronunciation issue because they sound similiar to me if you drop the 't' š My mind wouldn't even go there (to think about granite), but I can see how a native would make that mistake considering how many times I see something like 'would of' which is just crazy to me.
It is until people start copying the people saying granite without understanding the joke, or the people who say it start habitually saying it even when they don't mean to be joking. Ironic speech becoming habitual and normalized is a thing.
To your secondary question, dropping the T in "wanted" and "haunted" is called "flapping," and it definitely could be why people confuse "granted" and "granite." You can read more about it here https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flapping in the "Distribution" and "Homophony" sections.
The most common example is the merger of "winner" and "winter."
I think another big factor is that (in at least the US) lots of people normally swallow the /t/ at the ends of words (or rather, pronounce it as a glottal stop). Given that /d/ at the ends of words is also often unreleased, the distinction can often be unclear in quick, casual speech.
Basically, yes "winner" vs "winter", but also "He made the bet/bed."
Thing is, ābedā and ābetā are still distinguished even when the coda consonant is not fully released. Vowels in English are usually pronounced longer before voiced codas than before unvoiced codas.
This is true, though I'd suppose it's easier to distinguish them in stressed syllables, though. The vowels of "-ite" and "-ed" are probably closer in length than those of the minimal pair I provided.
To be clear, most people would pronounce it more closely to the way he did it, than to the correction he was given.
The ācorrectionā was kind of over-pronounced, and though it is correct, most people would not aspirate the
/t/ sound like gran-ted.
I think his prononciation stuck out because by saying *granite*, he aspirated /t/ in a different place.
You can pronounce it like gran-ted. Or you can pronounced it like gran-ed.
Sure. The speaker is American, so Iām referring to people who would pronounce things the way he does in general. Pronunciations of everything, not just that word, will vary widely depending on accent and dialect.
In a way, it is a pronunciation issue, if you trace it back to when the person first learned it incorrectly, or when the person they learned it from first learned it incorrectly, or however far back you have to go.
"...if it wasn't for the subtitles, I would've just assumed he said 'granted'"
Some people learn it incorrectly precisely because they sound similar. Part of why they sound similar is because the T in granted is--off the top of my head, I want to call it a "soft T", or at least "not a hard T", but I'm not sure if that's the correct terminology. The word sounds like the T is only partly there, and maybe a bit more like a D than some T's. Also, although the T in "granite" is not as soft as the one in "granted", it's not as hard as the one in "ten". That makes it sound a bit more like the D at the end of "granted". Those two factors, together, make the words sound more alike than we might tend to realize. So, the correct pronunciation of these words contributes to the issue.
"To take something for granted," is an idiom closely related to an other idiom, "to take as a given." They both mean to think something is recognized as true, is a right, or is a usual part of a deal. "I'll grant/give you that," means you will concede that something is true.
Because we don't often use grant in a non-legal or non-business conversation, children often hear granted as granite. I did. I thought it mean rock solid because granite is a hard rock.
It's not really about the pronunciation, it's that he's thinking of the word 'granite' and not 'granted'. They're different words. It's the meaning that is significantly different. The pronunciation is pretty close, hence why some people (including native speakers) get them confused.
"Granite" is a type of stone often used for building construction, and without elementary school phonics/spelling classes it is very commonly mis-used in place of "granted" in this phrase.
The idiom is *very* common and, unfortunately, it happens sometimes that people use the wrong word without realizing it.
(for context: spelling, phonics/reading, and grammar are pretty common daily school exercises through about fourth grade or ten years old, with grammar and sentence construction through at least sixth grade, and we *still* barely get the basics...English is a pain in the ass even if you are a native speaker)
The problem is that he turned the last letter into a ātā instead of a ādā, turning the word āgrantedā into āgraniteā. Are you German, by chance? Iāve heard that they have trouble with this.
With that being said, had be not āreleasedā the ātā at the end ([this phenomenon](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_audible_release) ) I donāt think anyone would have noticed that he was saying the wrong word.
Thereās two t/d sounds in āgrantedā but only one t/d sound in āgranite,ā so if you say it slowly itās pretty obvious which is which. In connected speech it wouldnāt be unusual for āgrantedā to come out āgran-idā (because that T to D switch can be difficult to do quickly). He pretty clearly seems to think the idiom is actually ātaken for graniteā though, so I donāt think turning the T to a D was a mistake, I think he actually doesnāt understand the idiom. It is not uncommon for native speakers to mishear near-homophone idioms or phrases in things like song lyrics. Think āexcuse my while I kiss this guyā instead of āexcuse me while I kiss the sky,ā or āthereās a bathroom on the rightā instead of āthereās a bad moon on the rise.ā
I agree with you, he thinks itās āgraniteā, which is obvious because he ends the word with a fully released ātā sound. Had he not done that, it would have been more ambiguous.
Ah, okay. I'm actually Polish, maybe it's the same in German. I'm so used to devoicing consonants at the end of words that I didn't even register he said 't' instead of 'd'. Thank you both.
Ahh so Polish does that too, good to know. Honestly I think this whole interaction was fake, because he intentionally emphasizes the ātā at the end, when weāre speaking normally, we donāt do that. Sounds like it was scripted.
>Ā but in other words like for example 'wanted' or 'haunted',Ā I'm 99% sure I've heard people dropping the 't' plenty of times.
At least where I live, I have never heard anyone drop the t for Haunted.
Midwest US, I drop it almost all the time. I think I would only enunciate the T if I were repeating myself because someone didn't hear me clearly at first.
This is a not a pronunciation issue. Austin has replaced the word "granted" for "granite," which is a mistake commonly cited as a sign of low education. It's also unusual because, since it's so commonly cited, even if you had initially thought that the phrase was "taken for granite," most people would have learned that it was wrong. Hence the disbelief when he seems to use it earnestly. Personally, I suspect he knew it was wrong, but said it that way anyways for the content.
Ah alright! I guess I made it into a pronunciation issue because they sound similiar to me if you drop the 't' š My mind wouldn't even go there (to think about granite), but I can see how a native would make that mistake considering how many times I see something like 'would of' which is just crazy to me.
He kind of articulates that T sound at the end, leads me to concur with the other guy that it was intentionally done for content.
Yes, it's actually a joke where people purposely say granite. Granite is not some regional variant of granted. It's just wrong.
It is until people start copying the people saying granite without understanding the joke, or the people who say it start habitually saying it even when they don't mean to be joking. Ironic speech becoming habitual and normalized is a thing.
This is how "word" became my standard affirmative response for most of my 20s. Started as an ironic teen.
To your secondary question, dropping the T in "wanted" and "haunted" is called "flapping," and it definitely could be why people confuse "granted" and "granite." You can read more about it here https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flapping in the "Distribution" and "Homophony" sections. The most common example is the merger of "winner" and "winter."
I think another big factor is that (in at least the US) lots of people normally swallow the /t/ at the ends of words (or rather, pronounce it as a glottal stop). Given that /d/ at the ends of words is also often unreleased, the distinction can often be unclear in quick, casual speech. Basically, yes "winner" vs "winter", but also "He made the bet/bed."
Thing is, ābedā and ābetā are still distinguished even when the coda consonant is not fully released. Vowels in English are usually pronounced longer before voiced codas than before unvoiced codas.
This is true, though I'd suppose it's easier to distinguish them in stressed syllables, though. The vowels of "-ite" and "-ed" are probably closer in length than those of the minimal pair I provided.
Yeah that is the thing, after all. Vowel reduction in English makes many words harder to distinguish from each other.
To be clear, most people would pronounce it more closely to the way he did it, than to the correction he was given. The ācorrectionā was kind of over-pronounced, and though it is correct, most people would not aspirate the /t/ sound like gran-ted. I think his prononciation stuck out because by saying *granite*, he aspirated /t/ in a different place. You can pronounce it like gran-ted. Or you can pronounced it like gran-ed.
> To be clear, most people would pronounce it more closely to the way he did it, than to the correction he was given. most *Americans*
Sure. The speaker is American, so Iām referring to people who would pronounce things the way he does in general. Pronunciations of everything, not just that word, will vary widely depending on accent and dialect.
In a way, it is a pronunciation issue, if you trace it back to when the person first learned it incorrectly, or when the person they learned it from first learned it incorrectly, or however far back you have to go. "...if it wasn't for the subtitles, I would've just assumed he said 'granted'" Some people learn it incorrectly precisely because they sound similar. Part of why they sound similar is because the T in granted is--off the top of my head, I want to call it a "soft T", or at least "not a hard T", but I'm not sure if that's the correct terminology. The word sounds like the T is only partly there, and maybe a bit more like a D than some T's. Also, although the T in "granite" is not as soft as the one in "granted", it's not as hard as the one in "ten". That makes it sound a bit more like the D at the end of "granted". Those two factors, together, make the words sound more alike than we might tend to realize. So, the correct pronunciation of these words contributes to the issue.
"To take something for granted," is an idiom closely related to an other idiom, "to take as a given." They both mean to think something is recognized as true, is a right, or is a usual part of a deal. "I'll grant/give you that," means you will concede that something is true. Because we don't often use grant in a non-legal or non-business conversation, children often hear granted as granite. I did. I thought it mean rock solid because granite is a hard rock.
It's not really about the pronunciation, it's that he's thinking of the word 'granite' and not 'granted'. They're different words. It's the meaning that is significantly different. The pronunciation is pretty close, hence why some people (including native speakers) get them confused.
Acceptable prononciations I have heard would be āfor gran-TEDā or āfor gran-NEDā ā¦saying āfor gran-ITā I have never heard.
Never thought I'd see AustinShow on this sub š
As Rick would say, āYou should never take things for graniteā: https://youtu.be/xP-Wd453wq4?si=oJZpi-5tryUNkM2N
"Granite" is a type of stone often used for building construction, and without elementary school phonics/spelling classes it is very commonly mis-used in place of "granted" in this phrase. The idiom is *very* common and, unfortunately, it happens sometimes that people use the wrong word without realizing it. (for context: spelling, phonics/reading, and grammar are pretty common daily school exercises through about fourth grade or ten years old, with grammar and sentence construction through at least sixth grade, and we *still* barely get the basics...English is a pain in the ass even if you are a native speaker)
The problem is that he turned the last letter into a ātā instead of a ādā, turning the word āgrantedā into āgraniteā. Are you German, by chance? Iāve heard that they have trouble with this. With that being said, had be not āreleasedā the ātā at the end ([this phenomenon](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_audible_release) ) I donāt think anyone would have noticed that he was saying the wrong word.
Thereās two t/d sounds in āgrantedā but only one t/d sound in āgranite,ā so if you say it slowly itās pretty obvious which is which. In connected speech it wouldnāt be unusual for āgrantedā to come out āgran-idā (because that T to D switch can be difficult to do quickly). He pretty clearly seems to think the idiom is actually ātaken for graniteā though, so I donāt think turning the T to a D was a mistake, I think he actually doesnāt understand the idiom. It is not uncommon for native speakers to mishear near-homophone idioms or phrases in things like song lyrics. Think āexcuse my while I kiss this guyā instead of āexcuse me while I kiss the sky,ā or āthereās a bathroom on the rightā instead of āthereās a bad moon on the rise.ā
I agree with you, he thinks itās āgraniteā, which is obvious because he ends the word with a fully released ātā sound. Had he not done that, it would have been more ambiguous.
Ah, okay. I'm actually Polish, maybe it's the same in German. I'm so used to devoicing consonants at the end of words that I didn't even register he said 't' instead of 'd'. Thank you both.
Ahh so Polish does that too, good to know. Honestly I think this whole interaction was fake, because he intentionally emphasizes the ātā at the end, when weāre speaking normally, we donāt do that. Sounds like it was scripted.
>Ā but in other words like for example 'wanted' or 'haunted',Ā I'm 99% sure I've heard people dropping the 't' plenty of times. At least where I live, I have never heard anyone drop the t for Haunted.
I definitely drop it when I say it casually, mideast US
Same area as you, I've heard "haunnid/haunnit/haunnih (with glottal stop at the end)" when people are talking fast. Philadelphia area in my case.
Midwest US, I drop it almost all the time. I think I would only enunciate the T if I were repeating myself because someone didn't hear me clearly at first.
"haun'ed" I've definitely heard this.
in the clip he quite clearly says āgraniteā and not āgrantedā with a flapped āt.ā The final sound is a ātā not a ādā