YALP!

[gnomi]

It seems to be a poll-y week for me.

I've asked two of these before, but it was almost 2 years ago, and a lot of you who vote in these are new to my friends list since then.

(I think I need a "Language Geek" icon for things like this that aren't grammar related.)

[Poll #932841]

Comments

[squashed.livejournal.com]

I pronounce Mary and marry the same way, but merry definitely has a different first vowel sound.

I'm still boggled that people pronounce Josh and Father with the same initial vowel sound!!!

[twitch124.livejournal.com]

Me too! especially the boggling part.

[eal.livejournal.com]

Me three; I'm boggling too and I do the same pronunciations.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Hey, you.

Feel free to ignore the voicemail I left you about 2 hours ago...you've clearly not been eaten by bears.

Except don't ignore the part where I say I'm going out of town tonight and returning on Monday. :-)

[byrne.livejournal.com]

Mary and marry sound the same, Merry is different.

Josh and Father both have the same ahhhhh sound.

[saxikath]

Weirdly, though, when I sing, "merry" and "marry" can come out sounding different. (e.g., if I sing "When a merry maiden marries," "merry" definitely has an eh-sound while "marries" has more of an a-sound.)

[glishara.livejournal.com]

Interestingly, when I was discussing the nosh poll with my mother, and told her I couldn't hear any difference between Josh and father, she laughed and said it was the Rhode Island in me coming out. I have very little Rhode Island in my speech for the most part (we moved to MA when I was 9), but this is apparently a holdover!

[farwing.livejournal.com]

Mary and marry sounds almost the same- and maybe I'm just nuts.

[jencallisto]

well, if you are, i'm nuts in the same way. they are almost, but not quite the same... i think my mouth shape is different as i say them, but the essential sound is extremely similar.

[tsuki-no-bara.livejournal.com]

mary/merry/marry probably do all sound the same to me, but i see them spelled out in my head when i hear them, so they sound different because i know they're different words. if i wasn't always thinking of the spelling i don't think i'd hear a difference, or at least not much of one.

[dancingdeer.livejournal.com]

I think many of these words are pronounced differently, but in regular speech, often un-enunciated as the same.

[tapuz.livejournal.com]

When I think about the m*ry are all different, but I'm sure that at some point I've been taken to task for mixing them. Meri, though is always prounced "properly"

[madfilkentist]

I indicated all of those as distinct sounds. On the other hand, "hawk" and "hock" sound the same to me, and some people insist they're clearly different.

[violetcheetah.livejournal.com]

in my dorm lived a don and a dawn. when one of my friends referred to one, i couldn't tell which he was talking about. everyone else pronounced them different from one another.

father and josh have the same sound to me, and i grew up in kentucky, so it isn't just rhode islanders.

[madfilkentist]

Hence the zombie godfather movie, "Don of the Dead."

[joecoustic.livejournal.com]

I pronounce all of the M words the same though I now know how they "should" sound different :).

If I try really hard I can hear a slight difference in "Josh" and "father" but it is so slight that I almost can't hear it.

The really weird one was "Aaron" and "Erin" I have no earthly idea whether I am pronouncing them the same or different. It's almost like a filter in my brain sees the spelling and ascribes it to the name and I can't separate what I know I'm saying from what I am actually saying.

weird.

[lensman.livejournal.com]

Mary and marry have the same pronunciation in my book.

I also don't get the Josh and Father having the same initial vowel...