Glottal Stop

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Glottal Stop

How do you write a glottal stop?

I'm assuming you mean in writing dialogue during a story, rather than the actual symbol for the glottal stop.  I think the custom is to put an apostrophe where the consonant should be eg 'bu'er' for butter or 'wa'er' for water, but it could get quite difficult to read if used a lot.

There's a symbol for a glottal stop? I would only use it in speech by cockneys - j'narda mean? I live in Hampstead now, so I've left them behind.


There is indeed a symbol.  It looks like a cross between a scythe and a question mark.  The only time normal human beings ever see it is if they, like me, watch 'Only Connect' on the telly.  Which kind of means they're not totally normal...

I agree with airy's first comment - I'm not a fan of endless dialogue. Celticman does it perfectly - enough to know you're reading something that's happening in Glasgow, but not enough that it interrupts your flow of reading