How truck starts
Reader KR asks:
How can I prove to an acquaintance that the word "truck" in English is standardly pronounced with an intial "ch" sound?
KR presupposes a conclusion that's a bit over-simplified. There's some variation here, and I don't think we have very good evidence about the distribution and relative frequency of the variants. But he's basically right: the initial consonant of "truck" in American English is often (usually?) palatal or at least post-alveolar rather than alveolar, and its release is often (usually?) strongly affricated. And in some pronunciations at least, the /t/ and the /r/ are completely co-articulated as a sort of labialized retroflex affricate.
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