XPost: alt.english.usage, alt.usage.english, nl.taal   
   From: kwakende@kulketlekkel.nl   
      
   In article <10htmc6$3arla$1@dont-email.me>, peter@pmoylan.org says...   
      
   > > As a non-native speaker, can you hear, and make, the difference   
   > > between ?We built this city on rock and roll? (not one of my favourite   
   > > songs by the way; don?t know why) and the present tense variant ?We   
   > > build this city ???   
      
   > In that case, you have to listen to vowel length. The vowel in "built"   
   > is short and sharp. The vowel in "build" lasts just a bit longer.   
      
   Right on!   
      
   It's like  in Italian, where  doubled consonants just  shorten preceding   
   vowels. "I build this wormhole using  24 magnets and it will work" has a   
   liaison between d and t but  "I built this wormhole using 23 magnets and   
   it didn't work" differs in the stop on t.   
      
   Of course  'd' is voiced and  't' not, which is  another difference, but   
   the English 't'  is more aspirated than in  most civilized languages and   
   the 'd' I'm  not sure about, as most English speakers  are drunk most of   
   the time in my experience.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)