The Voice and Diction of Conversation : Page 70

The simplest road to respectable diction is not to drop consonants which according to the dictionary should not be dropped and to make sure that the accented vowels are given their full, resonant value. The difference in culture between "Watchu wan fdinner?" and "What do you want for dinner?" is that of the Bowery and Fifth Avenue. Substituting n for the digraph ng in coming and going is all right in popular songs, but it is still an index of unrefined speech. As to vowels, it is a common observation that the most cultured Englishmen and noticeably refined Americans tend to pronounce the a wherever at all possible like that in father. This suggests a generalization that refined speakers generally will tend to give their vowels a fuller, broader value rather than a thin or flat one. Perhaps one can say that refined speakers will not let their a's slip altogether into e's, their can't and plan and hat will never sound like ken't and plen and het. Their o's and u's will retain some of the same value as in French, German, and Italian. In short, a good speaker will give resonance, real sound, to the accented vowels. As for the secondary syllables, he will clearly de-emphasize them, unaccent them, but he will not slur or drop them.