"G-dropping" is not, in fact, a dropping of anything. There is no "g". The "g" is a lie.

The -ing ending is pronounced (in most Anglophone accents) by combining two sounds: an "i" and a "ng". The phonetic symbols for these are /ɪ/ and /ŋ/.

>> >>

In some accents, instead of /ŋ/, speakers use /n/. If you try to approximate this in writing, you get e.g. "runnin'", in contrast to the more standard "running". But there's no actual sound "dropped"; the "dropped g" is an accident of our spelling system.

>>