# The gratuitous glottal stop and dangers thereof **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [December 29, 2012, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gratuitous-glottal-stop-and-dangers-thereof/645509 "2012-12-29T19:37:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2012, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gratuitous-glottal-stop-and-dangers-thereof/645509/1 "2012-12-29T19:37:37Z")
Some people affect the use of a glottal stop when it’s not really part of the standard language. You’ve probably heard this in Cockney English, but you also hear it among certain young people in the U.S. We were doing a college visit when I distinctly heard our student guide say that the cafeteria is “buttface style.” My teenage daughter and I both tried not to laugh when we both figured out that he said “buffet style” but added a severe glottal stop before the double-f that made it sound like a t. ---
**Author:** ![SerafinaPekala](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecae2f/32.png) [@SerafinaPekala](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SerafinaPekala)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2012, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gratuitous-glottal-stop-and-dangers-thereof/645509/2 "2012-12-29T20:45:48Z")
Can you give an example from YT? I dont get it. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2012, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gratuitous-glottal-stop-and-dangers-thereof/645509/3 "2012-12-29T21:06:56Z")
It’s when you stop the sound by closing your throat, rather than enunciating the consonants, like saying “uh-oh” (the first “h” is a glottal stop, the second one isn’t(?)). More seasonally, pretend you’re a very sarcastic Santa and say “Ho. Ho. Ho.” So, “buffet style” becomes “Bu-fay style” which becomes “buttface tile”. ---
**Author:** ![EmilyG](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/emilyg/32/364_2.png) [@EmilyG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EmilyG)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2012, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gratuitous-glottal-stop-and-dangers-thereof/645509/4 "2012-12-29T21:10:47Z")
> [@SerafinaPekala](#): > > Can you give an example from YT? I dont get it. This video explains it a bit: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uS4YZ\_a3\_ig](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uS4YZ_a3_ig) ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2012, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gratuitous-glottal-stop-and-dangers-thereof/645509/5 "2012-12-29T21:23:31Z")
No Cockney would put a glottal stop before the F in “buffet style”, just to get that out of the way. The English glottal stop is used in place of a T sound, after vowels. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2012, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gratuitous-glottal-stop-and-dangers-thereof/645509/6 "2012-12-29T22:00:41Z")
Wha-ever. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2012, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gratuitous-glottal-stop-and-dangers-thereof/645509/7 "2012-12-30T03:41:56Z")
**SerafinaPekala** , a glottal stop is when the glottis, down in the throat, interrupts the voicing of a sound by stopping air flow. Americans often use a glottal stop between words when one ends in a vowel sound and the next one starts with a similar vowel sound, to keep it from sounding like one word: no ocean free email Thai iced tea I don’t like the way the guy in that video describes it, because he puts the stop _after_ the tt in “mitten.” I am not a speech therapist but it seems to be that is a lingual stop, not a glottal stop. You are halting the flow of air at the tip of the tongue. His examples are all like this except Hawai’i. Hawai’ian has a glottal stop as part of the language, and so does Arabic. In English it’s just an undocumented feature 😉 Cockneys use the stop _instead of_ the tt ([actor explaining it, go to 1:30 for glottal stop](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnjGNJ5JL8w)), and some Americans do too. My daughter does this with “button” and it drives me crazy because it’s a teenage affectation, not anything in Northern Virginia culture. > [@Ximenean](#): > > No Cockney would put a glottal stop before the F in “buffet style”, just to get that out of the way. The English glottal stop is used in place of a T sound, after vowels. Agreed, especially double-t sounds. I think it’s odd to use it in “buffet” although I think it may be an African-American thing. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2012, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gratuitous-glottal-stop-and-dangers-thereof/645509/8 "2012-12-30T15:31:43Z")
> [@CookingWithGas](#): > > \*\*I don’t like the way the guy in that video describes it, because he puts the stop _after_ the tt in “mitten.” I am not a speech therapist but it seems to be that is a lingual stop, not a glottal stop. You are halting the flow of air at the tip of the tongue. Not with “mitten.” I noticed that around here: the pronunciation is “mi’in” and the stop clearly comes from the glottis. There is no “t” sound (which is a lingual stop). ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2012, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gratuitous-glottal-stop-and-dangers-thereof/645509/9 "2012-12-30T16:52:18Z")
> [@CookingWithGas](#): > > no ocean > free email > Thai iced tea Where I live, those second two examples would often be uttered not with a glottal stop but more with a lingual-palatal separation. Kind of like “free-yemail” or “Thai-yaiced tea”. American English can get incredibly sloppy, the first example might end up sounding like “no-wocean” in informal speech, and sometimes the words can actually run together with no audible division, especially of the context is narrow enough to exclude ambiguity. When I hear the way some people talk (including myself), ti is amzanig we cna veen tesae uot the menaign form the aduio slaad ew aer heranig. ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2012, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gratuitous-glottal-stop-and-dangers-thereof/645509/10 "2012-12-30T17:08:12Z")
Ay up, Tha’d 'ave 'ard time twigging on what we were sayin roun ure if tha dun’t knorr aboot tha glo’al stop that knorrs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VLYpKGVBUg ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2012, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gratuitous-glottal-stop-and-dangers-thereof/645509/11 "2012-12-30T17:16:24Z")
> [@For You](#): > > American English can get incredibly sloppy,… I agree with the nature of the characterization, but I’d point out that it only seems “sloppy” to speakers of NAE because it’s our dialect, (and therefore “easier” for us) . To non-native speakers some if these phonological traits are just as acrobatic and difficult to produce as any other aspect if English. ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2012, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gratuitous-glottal-stop-and-dangers-thereof/645509/12 "2012-12-30T17:18:41Z")
I simply must put up this youtube link, complete with all the local dialectical glottal stops [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/sB3ieNhEsDY/hqdefault.jpg "interview with millen eve - true yorkshire accent!") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sB3ieNhEsDY) ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2012, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gratuitous-glottal-stop-and-dangers-thereof/645509/13 "2012-12-30T19:00:28Z")
> [@CookingWithGas](#): > > I don’t like the way the guy in that video describes it, because he puts the stop _after_ the tt in “mitten.” I am not a speech therapist but it seems to be that is a lingual stop, not a glottal stop. You are halting the flow of air at the tip of the tongue. His examples are all like this except Hawai’i. Hawai’ian has a glottal stop as part of the language, and so does Arabic. In English it’s just an undocumented feature 😉 Yes–I can’t see the video at the moment but it seems here as though the glottal stop is being conflated with a simple unreleased stop. ---
**Author:** ![iamthewalrus\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/258eb7/32.png) [@iamthewalrus\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamthewalrus_3)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2012, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gratuitous-glottal-stop-and-dangers-thereof/645509/14 "2012-12-31T19:15:56Z")
> [@Ximenean](#): > > No Cockney would put a glottal stop before the F in “buffet style”, just to get that out of the way. The English glottal stop is used in place of a T sound, after vowels. Which is exactly why “buffet s[tyle]” sounded like “buttface”, because you expect the glottal stop to take the place of the ts that aren’t there. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2012, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gratuitous-glottal-stop-and-dangers-thereof/645509/15 "2012-12-31T19:31:16Z")
> [@iamthewalrus\_3](#): > > Which is exactly why “buffet s[tyle]” sounded like “buttface”, because you expect the glottal stop to take the place of the ts that aren’t there. But also apparently because of the syllable stress (on the first syllable)–which is probably at the heart of the problem in the OP. Otherwise it couldn’t’ve been much of a glottal stop. ---
**Author:** ![Noodles\_Fellicini](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e36b37/32.png) [@Noodles\_Fellicini](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noodles_Fellicini)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2012, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gratuitous-glottal-stop-and-dangers-thereof/645509/16 "2012-12-31T19:35:11Z")
Does this explain the pronunciation of “important” that I find so irritating? The “ant” is emphasized but the somehow the first T has gone AWOL. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2012, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-gratuitous-glottal-stop-and-dangers-thereof/645509/17 "2012-12-31T22:16:15Z")
> [@guizot](#): > > But also apparently because of the syllable stress (on the first syllable)–which is probably at the heart of the problem in the OP. Otherwise it couldn’t’ve been much of a glottal stop. Which really does explain the confusion. In my part of the country, the word is typically pronounced like b’FÁY, but I have heard a few people pronounce it BÚfay, mostly east of the Mississippi. The stress division in both forms is pretty steep, the tonal change in the second could be perceived as a glottal stop that is not actually present.