I chuckle when New Englanders comment on my Texan drawl. They can turn “caarrr” into a very long word.
We eat bulled peanuts here. Nothing to do with bulls; you boil them. When they are really salty and so hot from the pot that they burn your mouth, they are a Southern delicacy.
We used to call dungarees “duns.” (“dunnes?”)
Actually, people who live in the town of Concord would say those who do NOT pronounce the grape like the town (“CON-kerd”) are doing it wrong, and considering that the Concord grape originated in Concord MA they’d have a pretty compelling case.
A name even a lot of people in the area he came from mispronounce is Henry David Thoreau. The vast majority of people pronounce it “Thor-O,” with the emphasis on the second syllable, when it actually should be pronounced like the word “thorough,” with the emphasis on the first syllable.
I went to college for a year in West Virginia. Pin, pen and pan were all pronounced the same way.
I say “necked” for naked and “arnge” for orange. Makes my daughter laugh. Not a regional thing, but my Grandmom used to call earrings earbobs. My sister and I have an ongoing joke about “I like your earbobs.”
In terms of how English words are pronounced, https://aschmann.net/AmEng/ can be interesting in showing what regional differences there are.
My Aussie dh says Mary, merry, and marry differently and I can tell the difference when he says them but I can’t do it myself. He doesn’t use the word dungarees and neither of us use the word chinos… where do you live that that is more common than khakis? Lots of words get shortened like that sunglasses to sunnies example… presents are prezzies (although that’s more my SIL than my dh), mosquitos are mozzies. Oh and swimsuits are bathers, although there’s also the humorously titled ‘budgie smuggler’ brand of male speedo.
De Pere, WI is pronounced de peer- rhymes with deer- while another Green Bay suburb, Allouez, is kept more French. Street name pronunciations also morph from how the family named after called themselves.
Several Indians mispronounce granite- we say GRAN-it while they do a long i, where it rhymes with mite/spite…
The merry Mary marry differences must be subtle- I would have to hear someone say them differently. In the past I have looked up words and found correct pronunciations are definitely regional. btw- with my poor typing I could have many, many variances without spellchecker.
@Publisher “Whenever I try to pronounce the word “lawyer”, it always comes out as “liar”.”
I don’t see a problem here? LOL!
@HouseChatte We used to call dungarees “duns.” (“dunnes?”)
Dunney is a toilet in the north of England - Take your dunnes off before using the dunney
Listening to Hurricane Dorian coverage, realized that I don’t say Florida (or orange) with an “oar” sound but rather an “are” sound.
Also, I say “gas” with a clear S at the end, but know people who say it more like “Gazz”.
Grew up in Philadelphia so definitely still say “wooder” but have broken the childhood habit of saying “Eye-talian.”
Mary, merry and marry are three distinctly different sounding words to me.
I am still pondering this one. I really can’t hear or pronounce these words differently from each other.
I say recruit with three syllables and only recently learned from my kids that I am wrong. There are a couple of other pronunciations I inherited from my mother, who must have guessed at a few words she learned from reading.
I remember that as a child, I knew what “orderves” were, and I knew “hors d’oeuvres” (pronounced in my mind “horz duh oovrays”), and I was surprised and embarrassed when I learned they were the same.
And marry, merry and Mary are completely distinct and I have to wonder which of the three sounds is being used by those of you who pronounce them the same.
I received a wedding invitation that said horderves would be served. Really? Google showed it is a common spelling. Really???
@twinsmama In the Midwest all three words are pronounced with a short “a” sound. The same one in “ cat”
A common misspelling. Just because people spell it incorrectly does not make it acceptable. Corollary - just because it’s on Reddit (or College Confidential) does not mean it’s true.
Aw, c’mon @skieurope, you can’t mean that! Everything on the internet is true!
Newark is either New-ark for the Delaware city or New-irk for the NJ city (though old timers I know still pronounce the NJ city as Nork.
Glad to hear it is the Midwest with the same trio pronounced the same. No wonder I can’t distinguish them. Easy from context to tell them apart- all are different parts of speech as well.
“Correct” depends on where you live as well. Regional speech variations cannot be labelled incorrect just because those from a different area use a different pronunciation. However, some are incorrect as they are a corruption of the spelling as I see it. Garage can have two pronunciations based on rules for the letter g while some other words come under the fashionable versus practical- foyer with Americanization or French roots. Then there is sloppiness and morphing of words which can be deemed incorrect despite widespread local usage.
All this from a person without linguistic credentials. But, of course, it is me and my world- I am correct… Plus, posted on the internet.
From California and I say merry, marry and Mary the same. I also say Kerry and Carrie the same.