Wo ist der Bu… die B… fein, wo ist das gelbe Ding?
Jokes aside, it’s common in gendered languages to have a handful of nouns with a variable gender. In this case, it was likely caused by regularisation; the word is originally feminine but it looks masculine, so eventually you got people using the masculine with it.
(I think that der Butter is specially common in Ba-Wü and Switzerland, but I’m not too sure.)
For reference, examples of the same happening in other languages:
Catalan - el mar (masculine) vs. la mar (feminine). Both mean “the sea”. I think that “el mar” is due to Castilian interference, given that Castilian uses primarily the masculine while Occitan uses primarily the feminine.
Portuguese - o omelete (masculine) vs. a omelete (feminine). Both refer to omelet, frittata etc. The masculine is more common but it makes pedants scream bloody murder.
At least in castillian “la mar” is only used in poetry and phrases like “me cago en la mar” or “la mar de bonito”, otherwise is always masculine as you said.
Just don’t look for “butter”.
Wo ist der Bu… die B… fein, wo ist das gelbe Ding?
Jokes aside, it’s common in gendered languages to have a handful of nouns with a variable gender. In this case, it was likely caused by regularisation; the word is originally feminine but it looks masculine, so eventually you got people using the masculine with it.
(I think that der Butter is specially common in Ba-Wü and Switzerland, but I’m not too sure.)
For reference, examples of the same happening in other languages:
At least in castillian “la mar” is only used in poetry and phrases like “me cago en la mar” or “la mar de bonito”, otherwise is always masculine as you said.