Sounds like an easy question, but I have begun to notice an odd pronunciation of it - was wondering if it is a regional thing.
I had a teacher a few years ago, and now several students, who pronounce the word “button” but with silent “T’s”. It sounds like “Buh-un.”
Is this just some weird coincidence, or have you ever heard of anyone pronouncing the word “button” with silent T’s?
Well, I don’t enunciate the “T” portion, but I do put a pause between the “buh” and the “un.” I don’t really know how to describe it…I’m sure some linguist Doper will come along and explain it better.
I say “bu’n,” and I have for all my life, as have nearly all the people I know. I had a friend when I was a kid who was originally from Russia and he had a mostly American sounding accent, but with a few little quirks. One of them was that he always pronounced the T’s in the word button, like a proper British person or something. I always made fun of him for it. I am in Indiana, FWIW.
That’s basically how I pronounce it, with the pause, and without a clear, hard “t” sound.
You mean they pronounce it with a glottal stop? That’s common in some British accents too, but it’s not confined to the word button - it’s any t in the middle or at the end of a word.
As grandma would say, “Well, Ill be…”
So it is not that rare?
I pronounce it “Buttin”…rhymes with mutton, cuttin’, nuttin’.
That’s called a glottal stop. I wikipedia’d it to verify that’s what it is, and weirdly enough, one of their examples of glottal stops in English is the word “button.”
I think it shows up a fair amount. “Them’s fightin’ words,” for example, would sound weird with that “t” in “fighting” pronounced. “Sittin’ in the morning sun” also has unpronounced t’s. A lot of words I can think of with a middle “t” surrounded by vowels will have that “t” pronounced as a glottal stop, especially if you’re speaking informally.
I know quite a few people living here in the NE that use the glottal stop when they say words such as button, nothing and eating. Drives me batshit crazy. I don’t say anything to those who do this because I know too many people who do it. It still makes my brain hurt to hear it.
I can’t and won’t speak for all Marylanders but I seem to hear “bu’ en” with just the faintest of ‘t’ sound in between.
Such that when I hear the t’s in a word like “button” or especially a hard ‘t’ separating the syllables in “little” it sounds positively bizarre.
Why?
What about when people pronounce the t in a word sort of like a d? Like city sounds more like ciddy or something…I don’t know. I think I kind of pronounce button that way.
My daughter said “button” this way when she was about 4 or 5. No one else we know says it that way. My guess is she picked up on it from TV…what PBS Kids or Disney Channel show could it have been?
Isn’t it a Board rule that Throatwarbler Mangrove has to pop into every thread like this?
“Buh-un”, huh? I’ve heard it pronounced that way before, usually on TV shows featuring young, urban hipsters. It’s sounds…sloppy. Like people who pronounce the name ‘Martin’ as “Mauh-En”.
Buh’n, muh’n, cuh’n, nuh’n… siddy, kiddy… standard Southern Ontario accent here.
Probably a glottal stop, more common to British English than American if I remember right. Other way to pronounce those ts: Flapping. (Wikipedia says it’s also called ‘tapping,’ though I was taught the term ‘flapping.’) More common to Americans, possibly what you’re used to. Few if any actually pronounce the ts–it’d sound like BUTT-TON. 
I use the flap–so I sound a bit like “buht-en.”
Like that. I’m in Oregon.
(That’s pronounced Ory gun.)
Yep. But-in. Sometimes with a Bu’din, depending on which syllable I emphasize. It’s a very similar sound that even I can’t tell which I’m saying. VA born and raised.
Wisconsin. Glottal stop.
Articulating the “t” makes the word sound quaint and prissy, and when I try to pronounce it with a flap consonant all I can hear is “buddin’”.
(Interestingly enough, I seem to use a glottal stop with all of the “-in’” words, but when I pronounce the whole “-ing”, the flap sounds correct. I blame the presence of a real vowel sound in the “-ing” syllable. I think.)
I pronounce the t’s, but when I moved up to Schenectady, I noticed that many people did not: buh’in or even ki’in.