Comment by Test0129 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Test0129 | Hacker News Reader

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Glottal stops for t's are not new. A lot of t's in American English are glottalized. For example

1. button

2. gotten

3. mountain

4. eaten

5. wait

In all of these examples the t is dropped entirely in all but the most formal speech. Unless you mean something different this is not a new phenomenon and is actually a characteristic marker of American English. In fact everyone I know, even people 30-40 years older than me, drop their t's everywhere. It actually feels weird to me to pronounce them in the above example and it sounds like I am scolding someone. I don't really know the linguistic history of it and my family has only been here a few generations, but everyone back to my grandparents spoke this way. Perhaps it wasn't as common before the 30's though.

As for news and what-not I'm so used to it I didn't even notice any change in inflection. NPR tends to be very hip these days (unfortunately) and so I am not surprised they are speaking more casually than a normal newcaster.

Glottalized is not the same sound as dropped or flapped. The American English dropped t's in these examples are either completely dropped, or pronounced as a (weak) flap. If not completely dropped, the t in "button" would usually be a flap, almost the same sound as the r in Spanish "cara". The final t in "wait" would most likely be an unreleased stop, if pronounced at all. Both regular and flapped t are articulated towards the front of the mouth, whereas glottalization happens the very back.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flapping and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-glottalization

While the parent is incorrect about wait, he/she is correct about T-glottallization in the word button. The glottalization of the T in button is even listed in the wikipedia article you linked.

Yes, but even though T-glottalization in button is happening in the US now, that was not true historically. It is changing from budd'n to 'buh-un'

It seems I messed up the definition of glottalized but unless I am deliberate I also barely pronounce the t in wait.

in typical north american english, in #1 #2 and #4 the t's are pronounced /d/ and the final syllable shortened (budd'n, godd'n, ead'n) and in #3 they are omitted but not glottalized (moun'n). in #5, the final t is simply not aspirated, but rarely glottalized.

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