6 ms·

I could not distinguish pin/pen as a child but learned to later in life. Another such pair for me was bowl/bull. I still dont distinguish marry/Mary/merry tho

by dzdt 5y ago

I could not distinguish pin/pen as a child but learned to later in life. Another such pair for me was bowl/bull. I still dont distinguish marry/Mary/merry though I have been told others do.

ravi-delia 5y ago
I have never in my life been able to say marry/Mary/merry different from each other. It just makes me feel like I'm trying to do a bad accent.
- EvanAnderson 5y ago
  I can't figure out how I'd even say those differently! Anybody got a link to an example?
  - moshmosh 5y ago
    All I can think of is pronouncing "marry" and "Mary" as "mar" (as: to damage) rather than as "men" (as "merry men", where the "me" parts are pronounced the same) but if I try to do that it comes off, to my Midwestern American ear, as very rural-sounding.
  - rossitter 5y ago
    For speakers without the merger, marry:merry:Mary as mat:met:mate. If you didn't grow up with the distinction (as I didn't), you may find it easy to enough to notice the difference—particularly between marry (~mat) and the other two—when listening to someone without the merger say each word one immediately after the other. "Implementing" this knowledge when listening to the same person speak naturally is another thing altogether. It's very hard to acquire new phonological rules as an adult, no less in your first language than a second one. An audio example: https://forvo.com/word/merry_mary%2C_marry_me/#en https://forvo.com/word/merry_mary%2C_marry_me/#en
    - jsmith45 5y ago
      I'm not sure I always clearly distinguish between the three of them. My "merry" is most certainly not normally the same vowel as "met" (it is a hybrid that vowel sound and some other one). Neither is my "Mary" reliably the same sound as "mate". I think my "marry" normally comes closest to the vowel sound of "mat", but I'm pretty sure it generally is not all the way there. (Although it can be, especially if I am trying to enunciate clearly). Over all I'm pretty sure I have at least two and possibly three disguisable vowels (with Merry and Mary probably the merged ones if it is only two) among pronunciation of all three. If I have three vowel sounds they they are allowed to vary enough that there is overlap between the pronunciations I will produce. That is the awkward thing with vowel sounds. While linguists specify a matrix of vowel sounds, a lot of people use vowel sounds that land in between them, and the sounds are not just exactly the same every time, but have some level of variation between them. And of course, thing probably differ with word stress, as vowel sounds often do in English. Not sure how they vary though.
      - rossitter 5y ago
        > While linguists specify a matrix of vowel sounds, a lot of people use vowel sounds that land in between them Definitely, but this is equally true of mat, met, and mate. As for marry/merry/Mary, there are speakers with a partial merger. Usually they maintain a distinction between "marry" and the other two. That does not discount the fact that there are English speakers who feel (rightly) that the strength of the difference between these three in their own dialect is equal to the strength of the difference between mat, met, and mate in most dialects. When it comes to mergers more broadly, many speakers who grow up with distinctions that some of their neighbors don't make will wind up falling into the nebulous middle ground you're describing. There's a cognitive burden placed on someone who consistently distinguishes sounds that others in their community do not, because the speaker who makes the distinction will regularly misinterpret what they hear out of the mouths of others. ("Wait, did they just say 'Mary'? Oh, no, it must have been 'marry.'") This is true even when there can be no confusion over homophones: "What does 'fahl' mean? Oh, they must have meant 'fall.'" This is one mechanism that makes it quite easy for a vowel merger to spread. Speakers are conditioned not to pay too much attention to phonological differences that are not a part of the grammar of others in their social circle.
  - pbhjpbhj 5y ago
    I (en-gb native) struggle to see how you'd pronounce them the same! Accents amuse me.
  - kelnos 5y ago
    I do say all three differently. It's hard to write out the differences, but: marry: the 'a' as in 'apple' mary: the 'ar' is pronounced like the word 'air' merry: the 'e' as in 'elephant' Not sure if this does a great job illustrating it, since if the examples I chose also sound the same to you, it won't work. To me, they are distinct, but they aren't hugely different.
swsieber 5y ago
I grew up in Wisconsin. The local accent to to make a's before g's long. So the a in bag, dagger, dragon, wagon, etc. It took me until college to realize that people from other areas couldn't distinguish between "beg" and "bag" when I said it. And once I did realize it, it took me a while to differentiate between bag as I said it, and bag as most people say. And yet longer to fix my pronounciation.
Macha 5y ago
It lists the south of ireland (though it's unclear if the author actually just means "not Northern Ireland" by this, as I'd consider it a "western" feature to have thick accents, as does his source) as a possible influence on this. Of the examples given: * Pin/Pen - Totally distinct * Marry/Merry/Mary - Mary ~= Merry, totally distinct from Marry. * Been/Bin - I never thought about this, but even I say "How've you bin", rather than "How've you been" * Again/Agin - It's a stereotypical elderly farmer accent, but I think even current elderly farmers I know don't have it, so maybe it belongs to a couple generations before that, or even more rural areas. Some of the videos of elderly Irish people the article mentioned: https://youtu.be/GT2OVUY2gZY?t=6 https://youtu.be/GT2OVUY2gZY?t=6 - "Shearing sheep, dipping sheep, roasting? sheep, correcting them down off the mountain" - I mean, there's definitely less distinction between how he says sheep with ship, compared to how I would do that or the interviewer does.
monktastic1 5y ago
If you pronounce the letter "a" you'll find that it's a diphthong. While pronouncing Mary, you can start the "r" either sooner or later in the transition of the "a" sound that precedes it.

by dzdt 5y ago

I could not distinguish pin/pen as a child but learned to later in life. Another such pair for me was bowl/bull. I still dont distinguish marry/Mary/merry though I have been told others do.

ravi-delia 5y ago

I have never in my life been able to say marry/Mary/merry different from each other. It just makes me feel like I'm trying to do a bad accent.

EvanAnderson 5y ago
I can't figure out how I'd even say those differently! Anybody got a link to an example?
- moshmosh 5y ago
  All I can think of is pronouncing "marry" and "Mary" as "mar" (as: to damage) rather than as "men" (as "merry men", where the "me" parts are pronounced the same) but if I try to do that it comes off, to my Midwestern American ear, as very rural-sounding.
- rossitter 5y ago
  For speakers without the merger, marry:merry:Mary as mat:met:mate. If you didn't grow up with the distinction (as I didn't), you may find it easy to enough to notice the difference—particularly between marry (~mat) and the other two—when listening to someone without the merger say each word one immediately after the other. "Implementing" this knowledge when listening to the same person speak naturally is another thing altogether. It's very hard to acquire new phonological rules as an adult, no less in your first language than a second one. An audio example: https://forvo.com/word/merry_mary%2C_marry_me/#en https://forvo.com/word/merry_mary%2C_marry_me/#en
  - jsmith45 5y ago
    I'm not sure I always clearly distinguish between the three of them. My "merry" is most certainly not normally the same vowel as "met" (it is a hybrid that vowel sound and some other one). Neither is my "Mary" reliably the same sound as "mate". I think my "marry" normally comes closest to the vowel sound of "mat", but I'm pretty sure it generally is not all the way there. (Although it can be, especially if I am trying to enunciate clearly). Over all I'm pretty sure I have at least two and possibly three disguisable vowels (with Merry and Mary probably the merged ones if it is only two) among pronunciation of all three. If I have three vowel sounds they they are allowed to vary enough that there is overlap between the pronunciations I will produce. That is the awkward thing with vowel sounds. While linguists specify a matrix of vowel sounds, a lot of people use vowel sounds that land in between them, and the sounds are not just exactly the same every time, but have some level of variation between them. And of course, thing probably differ with word stress, as vowel sounds often do in English. Not sure how they vary though.
    - rossitter 5y ago
      > While linguists specify a matrix of vowel sounds, a lot of people use vowel sounds that land in between them Definitely, but this is equally true of mat, met, and mate. As for marry/merry/Mary, there are speakers with a partial merger. Usually they maintain a distinction between "marry" and the other two. That does not discount the fact that there are English speakers who feel (rightly) that the strength of the difference between these three in their own dialect is equal to the strength of the difference between mat, met, and mate in most dialects. When it comes to mergers more broadly, many speakers who grow up with distinctions that some of their neighbors don't make will wind up falling into the nebulous middle ground you're describing. There's a cognitive burden placed on someone who consistently distinguishes sounds that others in their community do not, because the speaker who makes the distinction will regularly misinterpret what they hear out of the mouths of others. ("Wait, did they just say 'Mary'? Oh, no, it must have been 'marry.'") This is true even when there can be no confusion over homophones: "What does 'fahl' mean? Oh, they must have meant 'fall.'" This is one mechanism that makes it quite easy for a vowel merger to spread. Speakers are conditioned not to pay too much attention to phonological differences that are not a part of the grammar of others in their social circle.
- pbhjpbhj 5y ago
  I (en-gb native) struggle to see how you'd pronounce them the same! Accents amuse me.
- kelnos 5y ago
  I do say all three differently. It's hard to write out the differences, but: marry: the 'a' as in 'apple' mary: the 'ar' is pronounced like the word 'air' merry: the 'e' as in 'elephant' Not sure if this does a great job illustrating it, since if the examples I chose also sound the same to you, it won't work. To me, they are distinct, but they aren't hugely different.

swsieber 5y ago

I grew up in Wisconsin. The local accent to to make a's before g's long. So the a in bag, dagger, dragon, wagon, etc. It took me until college to realize that people from other areas couldn't distinguish between "beg" and "bag" when I said it. And once I did realize it, it took me a while to differentiate between bag as I said it, and bag as most people say. And yet longer to fix my pronounciation.

Macha 5y ago

It lists the south of ireland (though it's unclear if the author actually just means "not Northern Ireland" by this, as I'd consider it a "western" feature to have thick accents, as does his source) as a possible influence on this. Of the examples given: * Pin/Pen - Totally distinct * Marry/Merry/Mary - Mary ~= Merry, totally distinct from Marry. * Been/Bin - I never thought about this, but even I say "How've you bin", rather than "How've you been" * Again/Agin - It's a stereotypical elderly farmer accent, but I think even current elderly farmers I know don't have it, so maybe it belongs to a couple generations before that, or even more rural areas. Some of the videos of elderly Irish people the article mentioned: https://youtu.be/GT2OVUY2gZY?t=6 https://youtu.be/GT2OVUY2gZY?t=6 - "Shearing sheep, dipping sheep, roasting? sheep, correcting them down off the mountain" - I mean, there's definitely less distinction between how he says sheep with ship, compared to how I would do that or the interviewer does.

monktastic1 5y ago

If you pronounce the letter "a" you'll find that it's a diphthong. While pronouncing Mary, you can start the "r" either sooner or later in the transition of the "a" sound that precedes it.