Hello-

 

I am curious, Paul: do your wife and kids pronounce the "merry/marry" group
as Midwesterners do?  I was raised here in CT and I find that I pronounce
the merry-Mary-marry complex with the same vowel sound (although may is, as
Richard said, like bay).  Now I wonder if this is a "New Englandism" or if
it is the result of having a father born and bred in Michigan.

 

I do pronounce orange with the "or" sound, but there are other words I use
which shift pronunciation depending on context.  Aunt, for instance, is a
word I pronounce with an "aw" sound in nearly every case - but then I have
an Aunt Lori, and the word then is pronounces like "ant."

 

Dialect fascinates me.

 

-patty

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Paul E. Doniger
Sent: Saturday, March 18, 2006 8:41 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: merry, marry, Mary

 

Richard,

 

Your pronunciation matches my own to a tee, but then, I too was born and
raised in NYC. Here's another word that holds some fascination for me:
orange. In my ear the first syllable sounds like the word 'are', but my wife
and kids, who are New Englanders, pronounce it like the word 'or'! The
opportunities for teasing are endless.

 

Paul D.


"Veit, Richard" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

As a TA at the University of Iowa, I once performed a magic trick for my
students. I wrote the words "merry," "marry," and "Mary" on the board,
turned my back to the board, and had one of the students point randomly to
one word after another. I asked the only student in the class from New York
to pronounce the word being pointed to (which I could not see). I amazed the
class by correctly spelling each word he pronounced (which all sound the
same to Midwestern ears).

 

In my (New York native) dialect there are four different and distinct vowel
sounds after the m's in the following sentence:

 

Merry Mary may remarry.

 

Phoneticians out there can correct me, but I think my pronunciation of the
vowels might be described as follows:

 

merry - lax mid front vowel, like the e in bet

may - tense mid front vowel, as in bay

marry - lax low front vowel, as most Americans (but not, say, Chicagoans)
pronounce back and cat

Mary - vowel between low front and mid front (the one many Chicagoans use in
back and cat). 

 

Midwesterners generally pronounce merry, marry, and Mary the way New Yorkers
pronounce Mary. 

 

Dick Veit

________________________________

Richard Veit
Department of English
University of North Carolina Wilmington


  _____  


From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Beth Scholler
Sent: Saturday, March 18, 2006 4:35 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Question: Language change and malapropism

 

Paul E. Doniger writes: 

 

" it's hard to hear the difference among the words, merry, marry, and Mary
(the all sound like merry). 

 

I'm from the midwest and they have always sounded alike, the meaning being
made clear in context. Lippi-Green also made the same reference, but I'm
curious--how are they "supposed" to sound? Or, perhaps it's better to ask
how other parts of the country pronounce them. 

 

Beth

lurking student and future English teacher


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