In
phonetics, a
lateral release is the release of a
plosive consonant into a
lateral consonant. Such sounds are transcribed in the
IPA with a superscript , for example as in English
spotless . In English words such as
middle in which, historically, the tongue made separate contacts with the alveolar ridge for the and , , many speakers today make only one tongue contact. That is, the is laterally released directly into the : . While this is a minor phonetic detail in English (in fact, it is commonly transcribed as having
no audible release: , ), it may be more important in other languages.