'kay ma'am

Do you understand the above sentence? Today we will talk about words with dropped sounds in casual English. Some words have had their sound dropped for so long we now spell them with the dropped sound and few people remember the original word~!

For example, people often say:

"Will that be cash or charge ma'am?"

So the store clerk is asking if a woman wants to pay by cash or credit card, and adds ma'am to be polite. Originally, ma'am was pronounced madam from French but over time in English it was shortened to ma'am. The d was dropped...

There are many other words with dropped sounds so here is a short list of examples:

another -------> 'nother

okay ----------> 'kay

because -------> 'cause ----more casual----> 'cuz

What's up? ----> Wassup? ---more casual---> 'sup?

As you can see in casual English we often drop the sounds at the begining of words or sentences to make them shorter. We also drop sounds at the end of words:

thinking ---------> thinkin'

What are you doing? -------> What are ya doin'? ---more casual---> Whatcha doin'?

Probably the most commonly dropped sound at the end of words is the final "g" in "ing". So it becomes in'.

Ok that's it for now, have a nice week~!

Phil