On Tue, 10 Oct 2000, Beth Benoit wrote:

> There's a discussion going on in one of my classes on the pronunciation of
> "buttons" (the "terminal" neuron kind, not the ones on a jacket).  Some have
> been taught to pronounce it to sound like "boot-ONS" with accent on "ons,"
> while others the same as the clothing item.  (I was taught the clothing
> pronunciation.)  The students who pronounced it boot-ONS weren't French, so
> I ruled that out.
> 
> Anyone taught it the boot-ON way?  If there's any interest, please respond
> offlist and I'll compile the figures.

After sending Beth a private note, I just realized I misread her
question and my response makes no sense. So now that I
understand what she's looking for, I decided to go the scholarly
route. Pronunciation isn't a democracy, anyway.  The on-line
medical dictionary didn't have it, but the regular one at
http://www.dictionary.com/ did.

Here's what it said:

bou ton 
n. 

A knoblike enlargement at the end of an axon, where it synapses
with other neurons.

Unfortunately, the pronunciation marks don't reproduce with my
mailer, but they specify boot-ON (accent on the second
syllable).

Case closed?

-Stephen
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Stephen Black, Ph.D.                      tel: (819) 822-9600 ext 2470
Department of Psychology                  fax: (819) 822-9661
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