Can't even
Language Log 2025-11-13
Summary:
In the comments on "Cant-idates" (11/12/2025), there was some back-and-forth about how much phonetic residue Americans generally leave of the word-final /t/ in sequences where can't is immediately followed by a vowel-initial word. In defense of the answer "not much", I pulled three examples of "can't even" (literally) at random from the NPR podcast corpus […]