<p>My mother was going to name my sister Meredith. We are from the Philly area where Mary, merry and marry are all different (of course). </p>
<p>She was afraid that her nickname would become Merry, pronounced “Mary” by those who didn’t know better. So she named her Jill. </p>
<p>This is a true story, I vividly remember this discussion from 37 years ago.</p>
<p>One of my professors, who “went to school in New Haven,” as he used to say, would pronounce the A in Mary like “air.” The A in married was more like the A in “cat.” I am not sure how he would have pronounced merry, but we talked about getting married in that class all the time as it was victorian literature. 
So I picked up the odd way of pronouncing marry for a while.</p>
<p>We also grew up pronouncing “sure” sort of like… sh-err, I guess. My sister went to girl scout camp in Ohio and came back saying “shore” instead and my mom wanted to slap her every time it came out of her mouth. I am lucky I dropped my maahrried before I came home! :P</p>
<p>ETA: Interesting, spligjig! I pronouce the “mere” in “Meredith” differently from Mary, however if we shortened it we would call her our pronounciation of Mary, not your pronunciation of Merry, so I guess her concerns were valid! I think this might be the first time I’ve understood how else to pronounce merry apart from like Mary… </p>
<p>…and now I wonder if this is what my grandmother meant calling my aunt Merry, rather than just being a creative spelling of Mary. She’s never gone by that name EVER so I’ve never heard anyone say it aloud.</p>
<p>Thanks, zoosermom and ema, for the Mary, marry, merry. I think I get it now, but it’s very odd to me.</p>
<p>D2 eats “baggels.” I have no clue where she got that. I’ve never heard anyone else say it that way, but here I have learned that it could be considered an alternate way to pronounce it, not a mispronunciation. I’ll still correct her, I think it’s weird.</p>
<p>What I can’t stand is when people pronounce wolf “woof”. </p>
<p>Also why can’t Brett Favre pronounce his name correctly? He seems to think his last name is Farve and not Favre.</p>
<p>My husband knew twins named Larry and Terry. Their names were meant to rhyme, and did, where they lived. I don’t think they do. (And neither rhymes with Mary.)</p>
<p>I also don’t pronounce Erin and Aaron alike, although I understand many people do.</p>
<p>Funny, DeskPotato, I’d pronounce all 3- Larry, Terry and Mary- to rhyme with airy.</p>
<p>My Philadelphia relatives actually throw in an additional variation.
They pronounce “merry” like the man’s name, “Murray.”</p>
<p>My cousin Jeremy’s name is pronounced “germy” by his sibs. I wondered why people with that regional accent would choose that name. I mean, I might have stumbled into it because I don’t say it that way, but they do.</p>
<p>It’s Nova Scotia here, and we also have a difference between Mary (mahry), marry (marry) and merry (mehrry).</p>
<p>What was most intriguing to me though was the caramel thing.
I cannot fathom how someone could say cahrmel to a thing that is spelled ca-ra-Mel :)</p>
<p>I used to go to camp with girls from Maryland. They pronounced Cheryl “Shurl” and I never could understand that.</p>
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<p>I feel guilty that I pronounce it carmel, but I do. I learned to say it years before I ever learned to spell it!</p>
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<p>they are not even close to rhyming in RI…and why should they with different vowels…</p>
<p>Larry, Terry, Harry and Mary all rhyme here!</p>
<p>so it seems the letter e is getting phased out…some pronounce e’s as i’s(pen-pin) and some as a’s(Terry-Larry)…why don’t we just keep the short vowel sounds distinct as they should be, lots less confusion that way as words with different vowels would not sound the same.lol</p>
<p>And who is going to make us all talk the same? That is the beauty of dialects- different sounds in different places. I would hate it if we all talk the same and we are already losing many distinct accents.</p>
<p>accents are fine, let’s just keep the 5 basic short vowel sounds…that’s all I’m saying</p>
<p>Terry, Larry, harry, Mary, etc. All kind of get a short e sound because of the r that follows.</p>
<p>Terry is classic short e sound…Larry, Harry- classic short a sound. Mary is the only one that is different, probably because it’s a single “r” after the vowel. That’s why scary and Mary rhyme.</p>
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<p>Psh. No guilt here. I don’t like carmel, but I’m a Michigander so I hate actually saying all the syllables. I say carmel, I use crans instead of crayons, I work for the govermit, etc. I also say “lookit”.</p>
<p>We also apparently have the inability to pronounce an “o” correctly. Petoskey is Petahsky. Hockey is hahckey. I never noticed this until someone pointed it out to me lol. I have no idea how it’s actually supposed to sound.</p>
<p>^^ HAW-key. :)</p>
<p>Romani: and there’s always our pronunciation of Pontiac… Ponnyack</p>