Here “bus” is pronounced like “buzz” and I didn’t realise it was weird until I went down to Devon and it was a dead giveaway that I’m a Brummie lol
Boston accents are funny. When my mother says, “where are the cah-keys”. My dad and I always say, “your car keys or khakis?”
We recently moved to a new area and there is a nearby town called Monticello. The locals all pronounce it mon-tee-sell-oh and will correct you if you say mon-teh-chel-oh. Doesn’t quite fit the question cause I think the locals are insane for that 😅
Charlottesville Virginia has a road spelled Rio but locals pronounce it with a long I (rhy-oh). Bonus points, the name originated from the road being route 10, marked with signs that said R10, which eventually became Rio.
NY state has a town named Chili that is pronounced—I kid you not—with two long I’s. “Chai-lai”
There’s also a town named Charlotte pronounced “shar-LOT”.
I feel like these are tests to detect out-of-towners.
I haven’t lived there in a while and I don’t pronounce it that way anymore, but where I grew up, water is universally pronounced “wooder”.
My wife thinks it’s funny that most words with a “t” in the middle, I pronounce as "d"s… Butter is budder, better is bedder, water is wooder, etc…
Also, creeks are “cricks”.
The creek/crick thing is very regional even within New Jersey.
Oddawa? Torono?
Is the thing on top of a house called a roof or a ruff?
Lol, I’m here sounding it out and it sounds between ruff and woof…
You from NJ?
Yep.
I’m told there are differences between “merry”, “marry”, and “Mary”, but I don’t believe it.
Depends where you are. Most in the US pronounce them the same, but they are all distinct in Philly for example. But we pronounce “berry” and “bury” the same.
I’m from NJ and Murray, merry, marry, and Mary are all distinct.
Berry is like merry and bury is like Murray.
I’ve lived in Philly and then the suburbs for a couple of decades now and have never noticed the berry-bury thing - I’m guessing it’s a South Philly thing? So do you eat straw’bury’s or do you ‘berry’ your dead pets?
I’m also from NJ, but I would be pressed to hear the difference between Marry and Mary tbh. The rest are all distinct though!
But I’m also told, when people find out I’m from NJ (online people), that “You don’t sound like you’re from NJ” so idk.
I was born here, so simply I must sound like someone from NJ cause I am! Logic.
Interesting! I think central, north, and south Jersey all have some distinctions in accent. Plus I think a lot of people have a pretty stereotyped idea of what New Jerseyans are “supposed” to sound like haha
Oh yes, people absolutely have an idea of what we’re suppose to sound like!
Once I start cursing like a sailor they go “oh okay yeah you’re from NJ” lmfao. I don’t curse nearly as much in text.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-language_vowel_changes_before_historic_/r/
Yes I would say “bury” like “berry”
I grew up in North Philly and South Jersey
It’s listed under Merry Murray merger in the wiki link
Interesting!
I get the rest, but how is “Mary” different?
Mary rhymes with fairy
That’s how I pronounce it. So now I’m even more confused! How is “merry” different? Because I pronounce that just like Mary.
Merry is like “meh” + “ree”
My ex got so mad because down here the boy name Don and the girl name Dawn sound about the same. He would yell no it’s not it’s DAAHN and DWAWN! But we don’t have that nasal Midwestern thing, it’s just Don and Daun.
In my area, “Don” is pronounced with the mouth wide, jaw open. Force a smile as you say it, and you should be in the ballpark.
“Dawn” is pronounced with the lips pursed. Kiss your grandmother on the cheek.
The single syllable words “four” and “hour” are actually the two syllable words “fohwer” and “ower”.
The words “anything” and “nothing” are pronounced “owt” and “nowt”.
The word “the” is not pronounced “t’”, it is simply replaced with an unvoiced glottal stop. The word “t’” is thus, actually, short for “to the”.
E.g.
Goin’ t’ shop. Wan’ owt?
means
I’m going to the shop. Do you want anything?
We also pronounce “bus” as “buzz”, too.
We also use “was” and “were” the wrong way round and say “pants” instead of “trousers”. The rest of the country seems unaware of that last one, and will accuse you of talking American.
My kid got a worksheet on the long A sound. She got through most of them but was stumped on the “lobster”. I looked at it - Lobster, Crawfish, neither of those have a long A sound, what the heck?
Hours later it occurs to me.
OH, Craaay-fish? Who in the world calls them that? Nobody here. Where was this printed?
I think “buzz” is used a lot to people near Manchester too.
People from Bolton (UK) get very defensive about the exact pronunciation of Bolton too. I heard this conversation several times between two colleagues:
Colleague 1 (c1): "... that's because you're from Bolton" Colleague 2 (c2): "It's not Bolton, it's Bolton" C1: "What? That's what I said, Bolton" C2: "No, you said Bolton, it's Bolton" C1: "You're saying the same thing, Bolton" C2: "No, Bolton" C1: "That's what I'm saying!" Me: "what. the. FUCK"
If you’ve ever seen Brooklyn Nine Nine and Jake would say “Nikolaj” and then Charles would correct him saying the exact same thing, it was exactly like that, but saying “Bolton” instead.
Also I heard several people from Wigan say “A packet of crisp” and not “A packet or crisps”.
Also forgot about this one: I used to live in South Wales, and people would say “Premark” instead of “Primark”. They’d think I was the weird one for saying it like Primark.
Never been to Wigan before, so til people from Wigan don’t refer to a packet of crisps in the plural!
Bavarians pronounce Chemie, China, Chlor, and others with CH starting, with a K! KEMIE, KINA, KLOR!
Bavarians there is so much go hate about you!
I was looking up Bavarian dialect terms and found “fesch” (attractive/stylish).
Vindication for Gretchen Wieners! “Das ist so fesch!”
How do you pronounce it? Schemie, Schina, Schlor?
Schlor? except that this one is in any case pronounced with hard K anything else seems ridiculous
also no need for the ‘s’, sounding out should initiate on the back of the tounge/larynx, if that makes sense
Boston area doesn’t use “r”.
The famous: “Can’t pahk(park) your cah(car) in Havid(Harvard) Yad(yard)”.
Sorry for the IG link
Here’s a Youtube link (couldn’t find a peertube link).
I love the guy who shows up and says “Ur ur a ur ur” and then just nods his head like he solved it.
Ha, yeah … can’t hear it.
MA has a bunch of weird ones. Worcester is pronounced Wooster. Haverhill is Haiveral. Gloucester is Glawster. Quincy is Quinzee.
It’s more Wusstah than Wooster in my experience.
It depends on if the speaker has a Boston accent or not. I don’t have a Boston accent so I say Wooster.
I don’t have a Boston accent (RI) and say Wusstah, as does everyone from the area (including surrounding MA) I’ve known.
Yah, lots.
Port Dalhousie (dal-oo-sy) in St Catherine’s. When it should be port (Dal-how-sy)
It’s apparently the only thing named for that dude pronounced that way too, Dalhousie University as an example. Wiki page has an etymology section that has some suggestions as to why, it’d sound weird to me though pronounced the other way.
North-East Netherlands. Besides the dialect, every sentence is ended with the word “ja”, which means yes/yeah. It’s like saying “It rains, yeah”, or “Let’s take a look, yeah”. It’s also drawn long, like jaaaa. Also, a lot of nouns are ended with “gie” in the dialect, making it a diminutive.
When I was in school, I had a teacher who insisted on pronouncing the word “across” as “acrosst”.
No thank you! That one really bothers me for some reason.
Same as “eltse” for else, “foe-ward” for forward, “warsh” for wash, and “ayggs” for eggs.
And some people say “heighth” for height and I swear it’s just to fuck with me.
I pronounce Kraken phonetically - “krayken” - but the world seems to prefer “cracken”.
I lived in Louisville, KY briefly, and the official pronunciation is apparently “Luuhwuuhh”. You will be mocked if you get it wrong.
Not “loovul”? I need to brush up.