Okay, I have been noticing the dropping of the t’s for a few years now. Not sure if it’s “urbanization,” because most of the women I hear doing it are white suburban millennials. I don’t notice it as much in men. So is this a new type of “Valley speak?” I had to sit through an advertising presentation once where the girl kept saying how “impohr-ent” everything was. It became very distracting. I knew she lived in Denver, so after the presentation, I asked her where she grew up. I think she said Rhode Island? Does anyone know if impohr-ent (important) is a Rhode Island thing ? After that presentation, I started hearing it everywhere… mostly from the women in that Denver office. Is it a Colorado thing?
Don't know about Rhode Island, smallest of the 48, but I knew a gal from Boston who lived in the Brighton neighborhood, which she would pronounce "BRY'ehn." She was from a nice town west of Boston and was facetiously putting on a rough 'townie' accent.
My own dear departed father, born on Manhattan's east side in 1932, pronounced "bottle" like "bah'l" (bo(tt)le?). Yours truly pronounces "mountain" more like "moun'in" (moun(t)'n?) where the "t" is so lightly pronounced it's but a suggestion.
I hear it all the time here. Mostly under-35, both women and men. Not only “impohr-ent”, but lots of words with Ts (normally) in the middle. “Ki’ens”, “moun’ain”, “bu’er”, and so on...
People here in south FL are from everywhere imaginable, so I suppose there’s a lot of cross-pollination. No idea how it got started, but it is distracting. However, when you think about it, we’ve been doing the same thing for years and nobody notices when we leave the T sound out of “often”, or when we say “twenny” or “innernet”.
No, it is a continuation of inserting Britishisms into our language. "Jab", "Spot on", "going to hospital" instead of "going to the hospital"(or university). You will hear more people calling university "Uni" soon. Leaving out the "T"s is more Cockney, I think. Watch Russell Brand sometime.