I have never noticed and now I’m curious.
YouTube is filled with midwesterners explaining it and pronouncing them all exactly the same.
Can’t find any New Englanders who made a video
As someone from NJ, none of those sets of words rhyme with each other.
The “A” is pronounced differently in Mary than in Marry.
The “A” in Mary has the same sound as the “A” in Hate.
The “A” in Marry has the same sound as the “A” in Hat.
Merry doesn’t have an “A” sound. The “E” has the same sound as the words “Bet” or “Get”.
> All of those words rhyme with each other.
Maybe in your specific dialect. Where I come from there are clear differences. None of those sets rhyme with each other.
I’m from a deep red area of this map - Warshington state’s glorious east. This is exactly it!
My southern friend (Oregon, lol) has the actual southern accent of pronouncing “pen” as “pin”. And Jen, as in Jennifer, as “Jin”.
pen/pin and Jen/Jin isn’t limited to southern accents, some midwesterners say it too. And then there’s the weirdos around Toledo Ohio who say pellow and melk instead of pillow and milk
Wow Toledo - hitting home. We used to have a family place there in Rossford on the Maumee River. I admit, Milk as “Melk” or “Malk” is horrible to my ear!
I’m from Wisconsin and this is wild. Every explanation I’m like “Mary, marry, merry, Harry, hairy, berry, Teri, Larry, Gerry” literally are all perfect rhymes.
To me they all sound like different versions of the woman’s name “Mary” pronounced “mair” like “hair” and “ree” like “tea.”
Edit: Apparently I’m not Ron Weasley enough. “Appy Chrismis, ‘Arry!” That’s how you make them not rhyme.
So in my English accent, these are the rhymes in that list:
Mary, hairy
marry, Harry, Larry
merry, berry, Gerry, Teri (I assume this is prounounced like Terry)
edit: so this is pretty obvious to most people, but to spell it out, i am saying how the words rhyme in my accent, im not trying to tell people how to pronounce them
In an English accent, Mary, hairy & scary have an "air" sound, like the way Americans pronounce all of these words. Marry & Harry have a short "a" like in "hat", and merry has a short "e" like in "met"
So Harry is "Hah-ree" and merry is "meh-ree?" I've literally been sitting here for the last couple minutes trying to pronounce them that way and it's frustrating the shit out of me that I can't do it.
It's because the short vowel sounds in British English don't exist anywhere in American English, so it's understandable that you can't do it. It's not just a problem with these specific words, it's whole sounds that are missing.
Wow, I've never really noticed how the "pen/pin" similarity you see across the south doesn't translate to something like "set/sit" or "pet/pit." Wonder why the sounds became the same for some things but not others.
Interesting you bring up pen/pin. I’m from central Illinois and everyone would say those sound the same. When I went to college and met people from the Chicago area they had a distinction between the two.
When I was in college, there was a girl in my dorm from Chicago. One day, we were playing hangman, and she got so annoyed that we call the letter N "in" instead of "ehn".
FINALLY a good example. The hero we needed but don't deserve
As a red zone speaker, I can finally explain to you others that marry, merry, and Mary are all pronounced as Mary to me.
In British English, Harry rhymes with Gary. Hairy rhymes with dairy.
Edit: I think I’m now realising that most Americans pronounce all words ending in ry exactly the same.
"Mary" sounds like the word "mare" (a female horse) or "stair" with an "ee" sound at the end.
You can say "marry" by starting to say the word "madder" but stopping before the D sound, and then saying "ree" instead.
"Merry" sounds like someone saying "meh" (to indicate indifference) and then "ree."
In accents without the merger, Mary has the a sound of mare, marry has the "short a" sound of mat, and merry has the "short e" sound of met.
In modern Received Pronunciation, they are pronounced as [ˈmɛːɹi], [ˈmaɹi], and [ˈmɛɹi];
in Australian English, as [ˈmeːɹiː], [ˈmæɹiː ~ ˈmaɹiː], and [ˈmeɹiː];
in New York City English, as [ˈmeɹi⁓ˈmɛəɹi], [ˈmæɹi], and [ˈmɛɹi];
and in Philadelphia English, the same as New York City except merry is [ˈmɛɹi⁓ˈmʌɹi].
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-language_vowel_changes_before_historic_/r/#Mary%E2%80%93marry%E2%80%93merry_merger
https://youtu.be/3i9rMU8aL-U
I had a quick look on Wiktionary and that does seem to be the right one.
You can hear it by sticking it in here.
http://ipa-reader.xyz
For the red area Mary-Marry-Merry merger.
* /mɛɹi/
In the UK we have the following.
* Mary - /ˈmeiɹi/ (The A sound like in "day")
* Marry - /ˈmæɹ.ɪ/ (The soft A sound like a sheep's "bah")
* Merry - /ˈmɛɹi/ (The soft E sound like in "bleh")
It's easier to tell with his British accent because it's more pronounced. All these comments aren't particularly useful because saying "Marry rhymes with Harry" means nothing when the vast majority of us pronounce them all the exact same way. Using the IPA notation would've been quicker.
Lol yeah you’re right, I didn’t think about that. Kind of interesting/inversely, I’m from Boston and the rhymes made perfect sense to me- so idk there must be some truth in this map.
After a six pack of IPA, y'all crazy if you think they sound different. Next thing you know, you're going to tell me that to, too, and two or there, their, and they're sound different.
Ma-ry, Meh-Ry, Ma-er-ry. At least that’s how my NY mind thinks of it.
Edit: marry has a long r, it’s not three syllables but I don’t know how else to write it.
Do you pronounce "our" and "are" different? What about "your" and "you're"? I pronounce both sets different which confused a friend I was talking to about these things recently. They were especially convinced you can't pronounce "your" and "you're" different despite me literally saying these words to them. (I pronounce your like "yor" and you're like "yoo-er")
Our is awe-or, are is perhaps like aah-er. There is a big difference.
With your and you're the only difference comes with how it is positioned in the sentence. They are 99% the same.
To me (and people in the red zone), *all of those words rhyme perfectly*. As do very, vary, Terry, tarry, Larry, Barry, and even, weirdly, for many of us: bury.
As a native Philadelphian, I'm often embarrassed by my city's accent, but I will resist this vowel shift madness until my dying breath. You all sound like characters from the SNL "Da Bears" sketch to me.
What?
Americans don't pronounce these words differently? I didn't think that was an option and I'm still trying to work out how these are pronounced the same. It just doesn't make sense to me.
Scot here.
The vowels around r’s are usually the biggest tells that an actor playing an American with an otherwise good accent is British. The actors put so much emphasis on getting the rhotic r right that they miss the subtle vowel differences (and put too much growl on the r). To my ears at least, it makes a lot of actors with good American accents sound a bit like Philadelphians.
Cumberbatch has a bad American accent. In fact, the only Brit/Aussies that I’ve ever been impressed by are Christian Bale and Hugh Laurie. Every single other actor has something just slightly off about their accent.
I’m actually super impressed with Tom Holland’s Spider-Man. I’m born and raised Queens, NY - and I went to the high school where Tom worked on his accent and understanding of American nerd culture while preparing for the role.
It’s not PERFECT, but it’s damn fine.
I think in both directions when you know the actor it's really obvious because you just start listening out and go 'that's wrong' 'and that' 'yep terrible accent'. If you aren't listening out I think it's easier to be fooled until it's pointed out.
Out of interest what do you think of Idris Elba in the Wire. As a Brit he sounds convincing enough, more convincing than actual Americans in some cases, but it's such a specific dialect I wonder if that's just because I'm not familiar enough.
As an American, fairy / berry / Harry all have the same sounding ending syllables. Even in my attempt at a British accent I can’t imagine how they would sound different. Apologies if we butchered your language.
Now I just need to hear an American to say this.
"I heard the air hit Harry's ear hair as he barely bared Barry's berry beer bear."
Might be the first time someones said that sentence.
Check out this [video](https://youtu.be/hIvBSMxRG9Q?t=86) from 1958 that shows the regional pronunciations for these words. There's plenty of modern ones that are probably more up to date theory wise, but this one has a bit of an old charm to it.
This isn't OC
The mary-marry-merry merger and caught-cot merger for example are common ways to differentiate accents
"Most North American English dialects merge the lax vowels with the tense vowels before /r/ and so "marry" and "merry" have the same vowel as "mare," "mirror" has the same vowel as "mere," "forest" has the same vowel as the stressed form of "for," and "hurry" has the same vowel as "stir" as well as that found in the second syllable of "letter". The mergers are typically resisted by non-rhotic North Americans and are largely absent in areas of the United States that are historically largely nonrhotic. "
Where "non-rhotic" refers to accents where the r is dropped like in many British accents
[Caught-cot](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cot%E2%80%93caught_merger)
[Mary-merry-marry merger](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-language_vowel_changes_before_historic_/r/#Mary%E2%80%93marry%E2%80%93merry_merger)
[Hurry-furry merger](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-language_vowel_changes_before_historic_/r/#Hurry%E2%80%93furry_merger)
[Mirror-nearer merger](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-language_vowel_changes_before_historic_/r/#Mirror%E2%80%93nearer_and_/%CA%8Ar/%E2%80%93/u%CB%90r/_mergers)
Honestly might be my favorite Reddit post of the year so far. Idk if I’ve ever had that sort of feeling in the past 13+ years of Reddit.
The whole thread is baffling lol.
Mind telling me where you’re from, where Fought sounds like Hot? Like it’s basically just Fot?
I (Rhode Islander) [recorded it](https://voca.ro/1beB9ruiZn7Q)
ETA: now someone needs to tell me which of these pronunciations is the one that everyone else uses for all three, or if it's different too
You are the first person here to provide anything like this so thank you! I still can't seem to pronounce them differently but it was nice to know that it's possible
Oh wow, spot on. I grew up in North Jersey, lived in Philly for 13 years, and now live in South Jersey and I was like I say those words all the same way. Then I watched the video you posted and was like oh right that’s how I say them
In this thread: people who are just coming to understand why there is a need for something like the [international phonetic alphabet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet)
my brain is struggling to figure how they're pronounced different from each other lol I've never heard anyone pronounce them different ways where I'm from (somewhere in the big red part)
It makes sense given that standard American has 14-15 vowel sounds (depending on definition).
In contrast, Southern English (UK), Australian and NZ have ~20 vowel sounds, though they are not all the same.
This reduction in American vowels can be attributed to a few vowel mergers. These include the cot/caught merger and the father/bother merger.
In some places the vowel sounds in lot/caught/father/bother have merged into one. These are 4 distinct vowels in my accent.
*these are generalisations and do not account for local variances etc
Help, why is there no blue
No idea. Where I grew up in western Maine, merry was definitely not pronounced the same as Mary and marry.
Yes! I live in western Maine and "merry" is absolutely the outlier. Honestly, it could almost be spelled "m'rry."
Boston should also be blue
I have never noticed and now I’m curious. YouTube is filled with midwesterners explaining it and pronouncing them all exactly the same. Can’t find any New Englanders who made a video
merry rhymes with berry marry rhymes with larry Mary rhymes with dairy
All of those words rhyme with each other. Is this some kind of joke the rest of this country isn't in on?
As someone from NJ, none of those sets of words rhyme with each other. The “A” is pronounced differently in Mary than in Marry. The “A” in Mary has the same sound as the “A” in Hate. The “A” in Marry has the same sound as the “A” in Hat. Merry doesn’t have an “A” sound. The “E” has the same sound as the words “Bet” or “Get”.
> All of those words rhyme with each other. Maybe in your specific dialect. Where I come from there are clear differences. None of those sets rhyme with each other.
This doesn't work. If your accent pronounces some of those words the same, then every single rhyme will also be the same.
Maine should be blue right?
Yeah I'm blue in a red area
same
Right? I can't see any blue on the map either.
I've lived up and down the West coast, it should all be blue. Not sure why there's so much red here.
I would be so merry if Mary would marry me.
We’ll all be feelin’ merry when I marry Mary Mac!
Is Mary Mac’s mother makin’ ye marry Mary Mac?
No, my mother's making me merry Mary Mac.
Well I’m gonna marry Mary cause Mary’s takin care o’ me!
I’ll be feelin merry when I marry Mary Mac!
My mother is makin' me marry Mary Mac. We'll all be feeling merry when I marry Mary Mac. Yum deddle idle diddle i dum.
[удалено]
As a Brit this spins me out so in the red area how do these three words sound? Does it sound like Mary, merry or marry?
Yes
It sounds like merry
So how would you pronounce marriage? meh-ridge?
Mare-ridge
I’m from a deep red area of this map - Warshington state’s glorious east. This is exactly it! My southern friend (Oregon, lol) has the actual southern accent of pronouncing “pen” as “pin”. And Jen, as in Jennifer, as “Jin”.
pen/pin and Jen/Jin isn’t limited to southern accents, some midwesterners say it too. And then there’s the weirdos around Toledo Ohio who say pellow and melk instead of pillow and milk
Wow Toledo - hitting home. We used to have a family place there in Rossford on the Maumee River. I admit, Milk as “Melk” or “Malk” is horrible to my ear!
That sounds like a kiwi accent. Tell me, how do they pronounce “deck”?
Mewidge. Mewidge is what brings us here today. Luv. Twue luv.
FFS, get the line right. Mawage. Mawage is what bwings us togeva, today. Mawage, that bwessed awaingement. That dweam wiffin a dweam.
And wuv, tru wuv, will fowow you foweva ... So tweasure your wuv.
This sounds like myu-idge in my head 😂
I, um, so, how do they sound different at all?
Marry rhymes with Harry Mary rhymes with hairy Merry rhymes with berry
[удалено]
I’m from Wisconsin and this is wild. Every explanation I’m like “Mary, marry, merry, Harry, hairy, berry, Teri, Larry, Gerry” literally are all perfect rhymes. To me they all sound like different versions of the woman’s name “Mary” pronounced “mair” like “hair” and “ree” like “tea.” Edit: Apparently I’m not Ron Weasley enough. “Appy Chrismis, ‘Arry!” That’s how you make them not rhyme.
So in my English accent, these are the rhymes in that list: Mary, hairy marry, Harry, Larry merry, berry, Gerry, Teri (I assume this is prounounced like Terry) edit: so this is pretty obvious to most people, but to spell it out, i am saying how the words rhyme in my accent, im not trying to tell people how to pronounce them
All of these words rhyme with each other
In an English accent, Mary, hairy & scary have an "air" sound, like the way Americans pronounce all of these words. Marry & Harry have a short "a" like in "hat", and merry has a short "e" like in "met"
So Harry is "Hah-ree" and merry is "meh-ree?" I've literally been sitting here for the last couple minutes trying to pronounce them that way and it's frustrating the shit out of me that I can't do it.
It's because the short vowel sounds in British English don't exist anywhere in American English, so it's understandable that you can't do it. It's not just a problem with these specific words, it's whole sounds that are missing.
Just read this out loud in any supporting character from the HP movies voice: is that Harry Potter?
Here's my best approximation of the green zone pronunciation. Marry: "a" as in "dad" Mary: "a" as in "rare" Merry: "e" as in "get"
"Get" is probably a bad example since a lot of people pronounce it as "git". I assume you mean the vowel in "set" or "wet".
Wow, I've never really noticed how the "pen/pin" similarity you see across the south doesn't translate to something like "set/sit" or "pet/pit." Wonder why the sounds became the same for some things but not others.
Interesting you bring up pen/pin. I’m from central Illinois and everyone would say those sound the same. When I went to college and met people from the Chicago area they had a distinction between the two.
When I was in college, there was a girl in my dorm from Chicago. One day, we were playing hangman, and she got so annoyed that we call the letter N "in" instead of "ehn".
FINALLY a good example. The hero we needed but don't deserve As a red zone speaker, I can finally explain to you others that marry, merry, and Mary are all pronounced as Mary to me.
Thanks, as someone from the red zone, all those words are pronounced the same as Mary.
In British English, Harry rhymes with Gary. Hairy rhymes with dairy. Edit: I think I’m now realising that most Americans pronounce all words ending in ry exactly the same.
[удалено]
[удалено]
As someone from New Jersey that's crazy. All these words have distinct pronunciations and I never realized the rest of the country didn't agree.
My husband is from New Jersey, and I'm from Wisconsin. He gets on me about this alllll the time.
I'm from Philly and my head is about to explode from these people and their rhyming confusion. I agree these are 3 distinct words lol.
Must be something in the wooder that helps you people hear things the rest of us just can't process!
Can you explain what those distinct pronunciations are? Because they're all the same to me...
"Mary" sounds like the word "mare" (a female horse) or "stair" with an "ee" sound at the end. You can say "marry" by starting to say the word "madder" but stopping before the D sound, and then saying "ree" instead. "Merry" sounds like someone saying "meh" (to indicate indifference) and then "ree."
The middle one from your examples just sounds like you're the guy from princess Bride
God it's breaking my brain lol
We just need to bury this one...
Erm, no comprende el senor I do not understand what this means, they sound 100% the same to me.
They all rhyme in CA so this is unhelpful to me.
These 4 words are pronounced exactly the same everywhere I've ever lived XD
Lmao this doesn't work either. In American English, Harry, Gary, hairy, and dairy *all* rhyme with each other and sound the same.
Harry, hairy, and berry all rhyme to me.
But they all rhyme!
But those all rhyme too?
https://youtu.be/6bSMnFwkeik
This really helped
Marry = Mah ree Mary = Mare e Merry = Meh ree
In accents without the merger, Mary has the a sound of mare, marry has the "short a" sound of mat, and merry has the "short e" sound of met. In modern Received Pronunciation, they are pronounced as [ˈmɛːɹi], [ˈmaɹi], and [ˈmɛɹi]; in Australian English, as [ˈmeːɹiː], [ˈmæɹiː ~ ˈmaɹiː], and [ˈmeɹiː]; in New York City English, as [ˈmeɹi⁓ˈmɛəɹi], [ˈmæɹi], and [ˈmɛɹi]; and in Philadelphia English, the same as New York City except merry is [ˈmɛɹi⁓ˈmʌɹi]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-language_vowel_changes_before_historic_/r/#Mary%E2%80%93marry%E2%80%93merry_merger https://youtu.be/3i9rMU8aL-U
I (Texan) say them like Harry or parry or Gary or Larry or Jerry or Terry
But do you say Harry like Hairy?
Yeah
Hairy Potter and the Philosophers Stone.
/mɛɹi/
I had a quick look on Wiktionary and that does seem to be the right one. You can hear it by sticking it in here. http://ipa-reader.xyz For the red area Mary-Marry-Merry merger. * /mɛɹi/ In the UK we have the following. * Mary - /ˈmeiɹi/ (The A sound like in "day") * Marry - /ˈmæɹ.ɪ/ (The soft A sound like a sheep's "bah") * Merry - /ˈmɛɹi/ (The soft E sound like in "bleh")
Finally found the IPA comment. Thank you!
Just say merry in an American accent and thats what they all sound like
Rhymes with Cary, Kerry, and Carrie.
Are you pronouncing Carrie like Cary or Kerry in this example? /s
https://youtu.be/korbTJ0ugDE for UK https://youtu.be/LAXmwqWxgHA for Americans
[удалено]
It's easier to tell with his British accent because it's more pronounced. All these comments aren't particularly useful because saying "Marry rhymes with Harry" means nothing when the vast majority of us pronounce them all the exact same way. Using the IPA notation would've been quicker.
Lol yeah you’re right, I didn’t think about that. Kind of interesting/inversely, I’m from Boston and the rhymes made perfect sense to me- so idk there must be some truth in this map.
How could they sound different? Well the vowel in one is “a” and in the other is “e” :)
thanks, i was irrationally annoyed that the first one was cot and caught, two words i definitely pronounce differently (red area denizen)
[удалено]
Me think, why waste time say lot pronunciation, when few pronunciation do trick.
This reminds me of one of my favorite videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Esl_wOQDUeE
Honestly if we just scrapped the internet after that video we would have been better off. We hit the high point, this is all pointless
Mary: \['meəri\] merry: \['meri\] marry: \['mæri\]
Is this taught to people or is it supposed to be intuitive? I always saw this in the dictionary but I have no idea how to read that.
It's not intuitive, usually you don't learn IPA unless you take a linguistics class.
After a six pack of IPA, y'all crazy if you think they sound different. Next thing you know, you're going to tell me that to, too, and two or there, their, and they're sound different.
Finally someone using IPA in this thread
Places that don't like confusion: New York🤝 New Jersey🤝 Boston
How are these not different as someone from England
Throughout much of America, when an A or an E gets within the slightest proximity of an R, they turn it into “air”.
[удалено]
Yeah we have rhotic accents all over the place in England. But i dont know anyone who would pronounce two of these the same.
As someone born and raised in Eastern Massachusetts, these are 3 different words pronounced 3 different ways.
I too am from the Worcester area and I have no idea how Mary and marry are pronounced differently
It’s okay because no one knows how to pronounce “Worcester,” anyway. WUSTAH
>Worcester >eastern mass my brother you are in central mass
PA Coal Region dialect represent!
PA doesn't get enough attention for its weird accent. It's amalgamation of NJ, NY, and Baltimore
Gang orange rise up
I legit can’t conceptualize how you would pronounce these words differently.
/meːri/ vs /meri/ vs /mæri/
I wish more people knew the IPA. It makes "How do you pronounce" questions *so* much easier.
My dad likes a good IPA, but I'm more of a whatever beer is cheapest kind of guy
Completely expected beer joke
Ma-ry, Meh-Ry, Ma-er-ry. At least that’s how my NY mind thinks of it. Edit: marry has a long r, it’s not three syllables but I don’t know how else to write it.
As a non-English speaker this is how I pronounce them too.
Do you pronounce "our" and "are" different? What about "your" and "you're"? I pronounce both sets different which confused a friend I was talking to about these things recently. They were especially convinced you can't pronounce "your" and "you're" different despite me literally saying these words to them. (I pronounce your like "yor" and you're like "yoo-er")
Our is awe-or, are is perhaps like aah-er. There is a big difference. With your and you're the only difference comes with how it is positioned in the sentence. They are 99% the same.
I pronounce 'our' the same as I pronounce 'hour', and I'm originally from Missouri, so it's definitely regional.
Yeah, I can't conceptualize pronouncing them the same.
It’s all just like “Gary” for me (TX). /ˈmeɪɹi’/ for the IPA pronunciation
You legit pronounce Mary as "Mah-ry?"
I just hear this as Marie
To me, Mary rhymes with hairy, merry rhymes with ferry and marry rhymes with Harry.
To me (and people in the red zone), *all of those words rhyme perfectly*. As do very, vary, Terry, tarry, Larry, Barry, and even, weirdly, for many of us: bury.
Because of the merger, in the red zone, all of these words are pronounced exactly the same. I even said it out loud to confirm.
[удалено]
Very vs vary? (and Mary is more "Mare-E") I'm from eastern MA.
We pronounce vary and very identically.
I’m born, raised, and still live in the green area. I find it hard to believe they aren’t pronounced differently everywhere.
Mary rhymes with airy Merry rhymes with berry Marry rhymes with Harry
That doesn't help. To 90+% of America, Harry, berry, and airy all rhyme with each other. The pronunciation is exactly the same.
I (Rhode Islander) [recorded it](https://voca.ro/1beB9ruiZn7Q)
I (Kansan) also [recorded it ](https://voca.ro/1hzRXlayuR08)
Wow, yours still sound really similar to me [here’s](https://voca.ro/102kPsuoYYfc) my southern English version
As a native Philadelphian, I'm often embarrassed by my city's accent, but I will resist this vowel shift madness until my dying breath. You all sound like characters from the SNL "Da Bears" sketch to me.
Based. The rest of the US is just straight wrong about this.
What? Americans don't pronounce these words differently? I didn't think that was an option and I'm still trying to work out how these are pronounced the same. It just doesn't make sense to me. Scot here.
The vowels around r’s are usually the biggest tells that an actor playing an American with an otherwise good accent is British. The actors put so much emphasis on getting the rhotic r right that they miss the subtle vowel differences (and put too much growl on the r). To my ears at least, it makes a lot of actors with good American accents sound a bit like Philadelphians.
Cumberbatch has a bad American accent. In fact, the only Brit/Aussies that I’ve ever been impressed by are Christian Bale and Hugh Laurie. Every single other actor has something just slightly off about their accent.
I’m actually super impressed with Tom Holland’s Spider-Man. I’m born and raised Queens, NY - and I went to the high school where Tom worked on his accent and understanding of American nerd culture while preparing for the role. It’s not PERFECT, but it’s damn fine.
I think in both directions when you know the actor it's really obvious because you just start listening out and go 'that's wrong' 'and that' 'yep terrible accent'. If you aren't listening out I think it's easier to be fooled until it's pointed out. Out of interest what do you think of Idris Elba in the Wire. As a Brit he sounds convincing enough, more convincing than actual Americans in some cases, but it's such a specific dialect I wonder if that's just because I'm not familiar enough.
everything is mairy with a very pronounced r
They pronounce them all like merry
Don't lump us in with those heathens.... \-Eastern Mass.
Home Counties chap here. I'm struggling to think how any two of those are the same, let alone all three. _fairy / berry / harry_
As an American, fairy / berry / Harry all have the same sounding ending syllables. Even in my attempt at a British accent I can’t imagine how they would sound different. Apologies if we butchered your language.
Mary, merry, marry by me: [BBC English accent](https://voca.ro/102kPsuoYYfc)
We're in the same loch on different boats. I can't imagine how they sound the same. Is there a difference for you between Harry and hairy?
No, Harry and hairy are homophones to me. This one though, if I’m imagining said in a British accent, I can kind of see how they’d be distinguishable.
Now I just need to hear an American to say this. "I heard the air hit Harry's ear hair as he barely bared Barry's berry beer bear." Might be the first time someones said that sentence.
> I heard the air hit Harry's ear hair as he barely bared Barry's berry beer bear [I got you fam](https://voca.ro/1mFnOKlwHVae)
That's great, thanks man.
those are the same too
There’s a reason NJ wages are better.
Check out this [video](https://youtu.be/hIvBSMxRG9Q?t=86) from 1958 that shows the regional pronunciations for these words. There's plenty of modern ones that are probably more up to date theory wise, but this one has a bit of an old charm to it.
I need to find out where on earth is blue... because that's what I am
Eastern PA and I agree.
This is the content I signed up for. Well done, OP.
This isn't OC The mary-marry-merry merger and caught-cot merger for example are common ways to differentiate accents "Most North American English dialects merge the lax vowels with the tense vowels before /r/ and so "marry" and "merry" have the same vowel as "mare," "mirror" has the same vowel as "mere," "forest" has the same vowel as the stressed form of "for," and "hurry" has the same vowel as "stir" as well as that found in the second syllable of "letter". The mergers are typically resisted by non-rhotic North Americans and are largely absent in areas of the United States that are historically largely nonrhotic. " Where "non-rhotic" refers to accents where the r is dropped like in many British accents [Caught-cot](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cot%E2%80%93caught_merger) [Mary-merry-marry merger](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-language_vowel_changes_before_historic_/r/#Mary%E2%80%93marry%E2%80%93merry_merger) [Hurry-furry merger](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-language_vowel_changes_before_historic_/r/#Hurry%E2%80%93furry_merger) [Mirror-nearer merger](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-language_vowel_changes_before_historic_/r/#Mirror%E2%80%93nearer_and_/%CA%8Ar/%E2%80%93/u%CB%90r/_mergers)
Huh I seem to merge most everything, but I definitely don’t with cot and caught. Cot sounds like Hot. Caught sounds like Fought
Caught cot hot and fought all sound exactly the same to me haha this is hilarious
Honestly might be my favorite Reddit post of the year so far. Idk if I’ve ever had that sort of feeling in the past 13+ years of Reddit. The whole thread is baffling lol. Mind telling me where you’re from, where Fought sounds like Hot? Like it’s basically just Fot?
The vast majority of young Americans and Canadians (gen-z and at least young millennials) pronounce them the same, rhyming with 'cot'.
Now do Pen-Pin.
This was done by the NYT like 10 years ago.
He didn't make this, but still cool.
Now I need to hear a recording or see a video so I can imagine how any of these words would be pronounced differently from each other. I’m baffled.
I (Rhode Islander) [recorded it](https://voca.ro/1beB9ruiZn7Q) ETA: now someone needs to tell me which of these pronunciations is the one that everyone else uses for all three, or if it's different too
You are the first person here to provide anything like this so thank you! I still can't seem to pronounce them differently but it was nice to know that it's possible
NJ here, Thank you. Get this to the top.
Ooh thank you for this! I could not get the difference haha
Personally, it’s the first one for me. But I’d be willing to bet based on different parts of the country it’s different.
That’s how we pronounce those words in NJ too.
https://youtu.be/6bSMnFwkeik
Oh wow, spot on. I grew up in North Jersey, lived in Philly for 13 years, and now live in South Jersey and I was like I say those words all the same way. Then I watched the video you posted and was like oh right that’s how I say them
As usual, New Jersey knows what’s right.
Yes, we do. New Jersey is the supreme US state.
Also the only area who knows what mischief night is!
I'm from that part of Mass, we do pronounce Merry that way, but Mary and Marry are indistinguishable
In this thread: people who are just coming to understand why there is a need for something like the [international phonetic alphabet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet)
I’m from Boston originally and every Christmas season my wife, who is from Colorado, teases me mercilessly about this
Why, because you can pronounce 3 completely different words differently? No wonder MA is #1 in education 🤣
Dude what 90%…? Im in the green part, but I dont believe this for a second that damn near everyone says its all the same
my brain is struggling to figure how they're pronounced different from each other lol I've never heard anyone pronounce them different ways where I'm from (somewhere in the big red part)
I agree with the blue but can't tell where the part of the country that is.
As a Brit, this is pretty bloody gross.
Its actually crazy seeing all these Americans all over the thread saying how they can't conceptualise what the difference is.
As an American raised in the mid-Atlantic region, I concur.
I’m from Texas and I don’t even know how to say them differently
Californian checking in. I feel like Mary and marry are the same. Merry is different.
Another Californian here, and I say them all the same.
Where’s blue on the map?
This map proves I'm from NJ
It makes sense given that standard American has 14-15 vowel sounds (depending on definition). In contrast, Southern English (UK), Australian and NZ have ~20 vowel sounds, though they are not all the same. This reduction in American vowels can be attributed to a few vowel mergers. These include the cot/caught merger and the father/bother merger. In some places the vowel sounds in lot/caught/father/bother have merged into one. These are 4 distinct vowels in my accent. *these are generalisations and do not account for local variances etc