<p>Pizzagirl I agree with you about pronunciation but midwesterners do not, IMHO. They just insert the ai as in hair sound in all short a sounds. Cat is Cait. That is thait. Aaron is Airon. Flat is flait. It is distinct and a very pronounced accent. They hear our pronunciation of these words as almost a British accent (aiccent). They hear cat as coht, that as thot, etc. Our pronunciation sounds odd (pronounced “add” but that’s another story) to them.</p>
<p>Ok so odd is “add” and pop is actually “pap” for those of us who’d just as soon say soda! (Sawdaah but only half way to the aw if you know what I mean - put a bit of Norway in your nose and you’ll say it right as in “we say pap you say sawdaah and you’re way is weird” as they say what sounds like “word” to my NJ ears…</p>
<p>Also as to the sounds we learned for short vowels in kindergarten, I suspect kids are not learning that stuff any more. There’s a southernism I hear a lot where short e is converted to short i. One two three four five six seven eight nine tin.</p>
<p>This topic comes 'round once or twice a year. Has anyone posted the online test thing yet that tells you where your dialect/accent is from and guesses your origin?</p>
<p>What I’d really like is for some of the sites that try to describe pronunciations actually to provide a little clip of what the differences sound like. I know how to make Mary sound different from Merry because my Mom made the distinction and my Dad didn’t, but I haven’t a clue how you’d make caught sound different from cot.</p>
Yes. A few weeks ago the mom of a friend of Ds told me her older D (Erin) was engaged to a guy (Aaron) and how much fun it is for the couple having a name that sounds the same.</p>
<p>My co-worker Carrie pronounces her name care-ree as does my friend Kerry and the teen (Keri) down the street. Several years ago we had an intern (Cari) who pronounced her name car-ree but most people called her care-ree too.</p>
<p>People here pronounce are and our the same. I am really going to start listening to Erin/Aarons introduce themselves. My niece, Erin, is air-in. Hmmmm.</p>
<p>Reminds me of the the cooking channel show where Alton Brown visited Alton, IL. He says his name al - ton. The town is pronounced awl - ton. He was surprised because he never thought alton could be pronounced other than the way his name was pronounced.</p>
<p>I am from the same area of MI as Romani and pronounce words as she does … and I will bet she also says m-ill-k, not m-elk. The current Kroger commercials drive me nuts with their “melk” sales!</p>
<p>We make no distinction in pronunciation between merry/marry/Mary. Bury and berry are also pronounced the same …</p>
<p>Ooh, a new one - mill-k vs mel-k.
Western Rockies childhood/west coast teen years.
Mel-k.
However I’m with kelsmom on the rest. Bury sounds like berry and all the Mary/marry/merry is the same (maybe a bit more e sound on merry, but hard to catch)</p>
<p>Pennsylvania Dutch for me, too. After we red up the room, we ran the sweeper (vacuum). We drank wooder (water) and shut out the lights at night.</p>
<p>re: drawer–my parents pronounced it “dror” (rhymes with roar or bore). I remember being confused and not recognizing this word in print as a little child when I first learned to read. Same with “crayon”–my parents said “cran” (my kids make fun of me for this one–H says “cray-on”)<br>
If I say Erin and Aaron any differently (maybe a tiny difference), it is at the end of the word–“in” vs. “on” (which sounds closer to “un” than “on” but still has a bit of the short “o”). But the “in” in Erin is closer to “in”–though it also drifts toward “un.”
The Er in Erin doesn’t sound like “er” (Erkel?), it sounds like “air” to me. Vowels followed by “r” are always “different.”</p>
<p>Hug–most central midwesterners (from central OH due west to KS) would consider what you describe a Great Lakes accent. (There are southern accents in the midwest, too. And many different accents around the Great Lakes) The difference I hear is on the long “o”-- drifting toward a long “oo”, a nasal short “o”, drifting toward short “a”, and a nasal short a, drifting toward “ya.” I think “cyat” (cat) is a better spelling for the sound you’re looking for (people are trying to read “ai” as a long “a”–like “rain” or “Kate”.) </p>
<p>I’m from S. OH and I confess I grew up saying something like “melk.” (Kroger headquarters is in Cincinnati, which might explain the commercials.)</p>
<p>Laughing about Meijers not Meijer. It is the same in NW Indiana. But Jewel is The Jewel for some reason around here. I even heard it on a radio ad.</p>
<p>How can Aaron have a short a sound when there’s the aa? It does not rhyme with hat (nor hate). I get the subtle difference in o versus i for Erin- often hard to catch. The r modifys things.</p>
<p>Milk and elk do not rhyme. </p>
<p>Kroger got out of Wisconsin decades ago- still remember the “Let’s go Krogering” ad jungle. Maybe my mom did say let’s go to Kroger’s, though.</p>
<p>Can’t figure out how Mary, merry and marry can be pronounced differently, unless it is very subtle. Mer is like the mar because of the r- and two r’s don’t change a pronounciation that I know of. Just the vagaries of spelling since ages ago before standardization.</p>