Just to clarify, this is not a Britishism. Many North American English speakers differentiate between the three vowels, some between only two of them, and some pronounce it the same. Personally, I say “marry” and “Mary,” the same, but “merry” differently.
Oh, that’s what’s wrong with Colophon and his damned insistence that Mary, merry and marry are all pronounced differently. 
I gotta start looking at locations…
Can you tell us how to pronounce:
Wednesday
February
Here in the south, we’ve been known to just call them “taters,” but I’ll admit to the “buh-tata” pronuciation as well. In fact, when my brother was very young and we were at a restaurant, he told my dad he wanted a “bake-buh.” This had my dad stumped for a while and finally DB said, “YOU know! A bake-buh tater!” Seems he thought there were taters, fried taters, and bake-buh taters. Needless to say, Dad got a good laugh out of this.
I was watching the Dale Earnhardt service and one of the commentators mentioned all the noise you could hear, calling it a “CACK-a-fony (cacophony).” I went :dubious:? About 10 seconds later, my phone rang. It was my sister, and without even a hello, she said, “CACK-a-fony???” She knew I’d be scratching my head over that one! (It’s "cuh-COFF-uh-nee, BTW) I could see someone making the mistake, but these people are supposed to be better educated in language and grammar, for pity’s sake!
Well, while we’re at it, it’s chronosynclasticinfundibulum, not chronosynclasticinfindibulum.
I used to call it Malk, because of a Simpson’s joke. “My bones are so brittle… but I always drink plenty of… (looks at carton), MALK?” I now call it milk.
On rural, I can’t say the damn thing. I feel like my tongue is going to leap from my mouth and try and throttle me.
I used to say warsh. My parents are from St Louis, I never had a chance. I taught my self to say wash, but now I lose the r sound in car wash. So, to clean my car, I sound like I’m from Boston. Cahhh wahhhhsh.
There’s a red flag. I bartend at a tourist restaurant so I know many of the small regional clues…and if someone says “I’m all set” at the end of the meal, meaning they’re finished, it’s a 90% chance they’re from New England.
Around here we say “I’m all set” at the beginning of the meal, meaning that we’ve got everything we need. (You know, when your waiter drops off your food and says “Is that everything?” That’s when we would say “We’re all set, thanks!”)
New Englanders only say it when they’re finished, but it’s apparently “The Phrase” up there because I hear it all the time from you guys.
South Texan here, FTR, and I say “ant.”
Grammatical Pet Peeve Of The Day: “Conversating.” You do not conversate. You converse. You can have a conversation, but you cannot conversate. This is such a common mis-usage that I fear it may find its way into Webster’s, but I will staunchly refuse to recognize it on that dark day. It just sounds stupid.
I, too, am completely unable physically to pronounce the word “rural”. Brewery, I’m OK with, but I do say it very slowly. I can say Montgomery, and I can say Ward’s, but if I try to say Montgomery Ward’s I sound exceedingly stupid.
I grew up speaking fluent Chicagonics (Sout’ Side dialect), but moving to the 'burbs at 15 seems to have cured it for the most part. Although I still say, “The lawn more is in the gratch.”
Ah, yes; “swaydo”. Rhymes with “Play-Doh.” I hate this.
My South Dakota-bred mother says “pasta” with the flat midwestern “a,” as in “past” – “PAST-ah”. This would seem to predict she would say “tack-o” for “taco,” but she doesn’t – though her kids do, to tease her.
And while it’s spelled “rural,” it’s pronounced “Throat-Worbler-Mangrove.” 
Good thread idea. Need help.
Though I’m not a native English speaker, not many people I’ve met pick up on that. But there’s a word/s thats given me all sorts of problems for the longest time: and that’s the noun, enthusiasm and especially the adjetive, enthusiastic.
Best I can explain my trouble with them is that I lisp while trying to sound out the “thu” followed by the “see” sounds. Comes out sort of like this: en-zzu-zias-m/tic.
Any ideas? Gracias in advance.
I now live in North Carolina, and I jump up and down and yell whenever some idiot furniture store runs a TV ad for lovely “bedroom suits.” I guess that’s where you retire after a busy night of serving “horse doovers” and “quickie” to your dinner guests.
Our local Food Lion has an aisle featuring “stationary.” My husband noted the aisle, indeed, was not moving.
My husband’s aunt once discussed “power ranges” with me. I wondered why the hell her kids would be so interested in electric stoves. It was my first real encounter with the Bostonian accent.
I know this is a pronunciation rant, but it made me think of all the things that people say that piss me off like
‘Can you borrow me a scissors.’
It’s lend, fuckwad and it’s a PAIR of scissors, dammit!!!
Another thing that pisses me off is people who write your in place of you’re as in
‘Your absolutely right, I am an asshole!’
Sorry, just had to get that off my chest.
I say:
Wenz-day
(Not Wenz-Dee; that’s another pet peeve of mine. It’s Mon-DAY, Tues-DAY, Wednes-DAY, etc. Not: Mon-DEE, Tues-DEE, Wednes-DEE, etc. )
For the second month of the year, I know it should be “Feb-roo-ary,” but I say “Feb-you-ary.” Sorry.
I have to disagree about “Wah - ter”; enunciating the “t” maybe be proper British but in America that T is nearly always softened to a “d” sound. The only American I’ve heard saying “wah - ter” with a clear “t” is Martha Stewart, and look what happened to her.
(There can be no excuse for “wooder,” though.)
Another of my peeves is substituting an “s” sound for a “sh” sound in words like “negotiate.” Where did that come from?
My husband, like several other posters in this thread, simply cannot hear the proper pronunciation of some words. Therefore, this intelligent, educated man ends up saying things like “libary” and “COO-pun” (for coupon). When I tell him the right way (he works with important people sometimes, and I don’t want him to sound stupid), he just can’t hear the difference in the way I’m pronouncing the word, and the way he’s pronouncing the word.
My own pet peeve: “comf-ter-bul”. No! It’s “com-for-tuh-buhl”. Get your consonants in the right order, folks!
As for the Mary, marry, merry, I say Mary and merry pretty much the same, marry is different. My mom, who grew up in Baltimore, had a sister named Mary, but in Baltimorese, it was “Meery”.
“Feb-you-ary” is actually an accepted pronunciation (in educated speech) for February, according to dictionary.com.
Oddly enough, for “Wednesday,” they list “wenz-dee” with the long “ee” as the primary pronunciation. Can this be right?!? I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say it that way.
As for “coupon,” is the objection the second syllable? Because if it’s the first, both “KYOU-pon” and “COO-pon” are acceptable, with the latter being the first pronunciation listed.
A couple more:
Those people who help you buy & sell property are reel-tors, not ree-lu-tors.
A division of a company is a sub-sid-ee-ary, not a sub-sid-a-rary (honest to God, I don’t personally know anyone in the world who can pronounce this word correctly!).
And Mom - where the fuck do you get that extra “n” in “closent”?
Oh, and one more for my husband: the car we own is an Ack-yuh-ra, not an Ack-oo-ra.
I feel better already.
Huh. I’m from Noo Yawk, born and bred. I pronounce Mary, marry, and merry differently. And so did everyone I knew. In fact, until I started reading the Dope, I didn’t realize some people DIDN’T pronounce them differently.
And I said ANT, until my b/f started working very hard to mellow my Fran Drescher-like accent.
Oh man. My last name…well, it’s very very very much like brewery. When I was growing up in the Missouri (I won’t even discuss proper way to pronounce that), it used to bug the living crap out of me that people would pronounce brrrrr. Like they didn’t have to use all the syllables in my name. Laziness, I thought.
It wasn’t until later that I realized while I had no trouble pronouncing my own last name correctly, I still said brrrr-ry if I didn’t stop to think first. And for the life of me I still have trouble with rural. I know how to say it, I just can’t seem to make it come out right unless I speak very slowly. Otherwise it’s just rrrr-ul.
Damn my midwestern upbringing.
It may not be English, but it’s not that hard to pronounce “entree” as “on-tray” rather than “entry.” A two-item entree sounds tasty; a two-item entry sounds pornographic.
Other than glaringly hideous mispronounciations like that, I have no problem whatsoever with regional accents and pronounciations of words as long as it is clear what the speaker is saying. I was delighted to meet some real live Wisconsinites that are around my age who truly and honestly didn’t see that they pronounced their state “Wis-CAAAN-sin” while I was saying “Wis-CON-sin.” They just didn’t hear the difference! Likewise, I am almost never cognisant of my intense Valley accent until other people point it out - or worse, begin to mimic it. 