# American accents: "ear" and "air" **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 7, 2022, 10:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-accents-ear-and-air/974503 "2022-11-07T10:53:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Keeve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f07891/32.png) [@Keeve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Keeve)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2022, 10:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-accents-ear-and-air/974503/1 "2022-11-07T10:53:31Z")
I’ve lived in northern New Jersey for most of my life, and the way most locals speak has always sounded pretty normal so me. But in the last 5 or 10 years or so, I have found some people, and increasing numbers of them, who pronounce “ear” and “air” exactly the same way. Or, at least, it sounds exactly the same _to me_ - they don’t understand what I’m talking about when I ask them about it. Another pair of words would be “we’re” and “where”. The vowel they use seems to be somewhere in the middle between “ee” and “ay”, and I can’t decide which it’s closer to. It drives me crazy, especially when I hear it in a song, and I wan’t to scream at the radio, “No! Those words **don’t** rhyme!” (Unfortunately, I can’t think of an example right now.) My Factual Question is: Is this a figment of my imagination, or is it a recognized accent, and if so, from where does it originate? ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2022, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-accents-ear-and-air/974503/2 "2022-11-07T12:05:57Z")
Typically, in the US, ear and air are pronounced with the initial vowels /ɪ/ and /ɛ/, respectively. Those symbols may not mean much to everyone, but if you just start saying each word, you can feel that your mouth opens up a bit with air. I’m not aware of such a merger in any American regional dialects. Closest I could find was a page about New Zealand talking about beer and bear. But maybe I’m not inputting the right search terms. And while I’ve spent plenty of time in New Jersey, it was before I was spending much time thinking about sounds. ---
**Author:** ![Keeve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f07891/32.png) [@Keeve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Keeve)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2022, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-accents-ear-and-air/974503/3 "2022-11-07T12:38:47Z")
Yes, beer and bear are another great example of what I’m referring to. Thank you for your comments, and I hope someone else will come along later on. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2022, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-accents-ear-and-air/974503/4 "2022-11-07T13:02:21Z")
> [@Keeve](#): > > My Factual Question is: Is this a figment of my imagination, or is it a recognized accent, and if so, from where does it originate? Seems to me that it has to be regional, as I’ve never heard the two pronounced remotely the same. The long ‘e’ and long ‘a’ are distinctively different, even when combined with other vowels (weird, for instance). ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2022, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-accents-ear-and-air/974503/5 "2022-11-07T13:11:59Z")
Do you know about the three Marys dialect? There is an area in the U.S. where people pronounce the three words Mary, merry, and marry differently. In most of the rest of the U.S., not only do they pronounce them all the same, they can’t hear the difference that the people who pronounce them the same, but they can’t hear the difference that the people who pronounce them differently say that they are using. (There are also regions where people pronounce two the same and the third differently.) What is hard to explain to people just learning about this is that in different regions of the U.S. people actually have a different set of phonemes: > **[Marry, Merry, Mary](http://dialectblog.com/2011/09/21/marry-merry-mary/)** > > \[Ed. Note: In an earlier version of this article, I suggested I pronounce ‘marry,’ ‘merry’ and ‘Mary’ differently.  The opposite is true.  I pronounce them alike… [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/3i9rMU8aL-U/maxresdefault.jpg "Merry, Mary, and Marry") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3i9rMU8aL-U) ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2022, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-accents-ear-and-air/974503/6 "2022-11-07T13:31:13Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > There is an area in the U.S. where people pronounce the three words Mary, merry, and marry differently. In most of the rest of the U.S., not only do they pronounce them all the same, they can’t hear the difference that the people who pronounce them the same, but they can’t hear the difference that the people who pronounce them differently say that they are using (you’ve got what’s probably a bit text left over from an earlier phrasing in there, but I expect it’s too late to edit) Watched that video. I’ve lived in various places in New York State nearly all of my life; and I can’t hear the distinctions he’s making, except that he’s drawing some of the examples out in an unnatural manner. Maybe by including New York he means parts of the city? There are a whole lot of different accents in New York City. (And then there’s Rahchester --) I haven’t noticed anybody saying “ear” and “air” the same way. But I’m not in northern New Jersey. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2022, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-accents-ear-and-air/974503/7 "2022-11-07T13:50:48Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > Watched that video. I’ve lived in various places in New York State nearly all of my life; and I can’t hear the distinctions he’s making, except that he’s drawing some of the examples out in an unnatural manner. He’s definitely drawing them out , I assume to make it easier for people who pronounce them all the same to hear the difference. I am from NYC and pronounce each one differently and I hear people from as far north as Albany pronounce them differently ( so it’s not just NYC). Don’t know about Rahchester though - the only people in that area I really speak to are originally from NYC. I haven’t heard people" saying “ear” and “air” the same way but I’ve definitely heard “bear” and “beer” pronounced the same. I think it was in Pennsylvania somewhere. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2022, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-accents-ear-and-air/974503/8 "2022-11-07T13:52:10Z")
This is the way that different dialects work. Not only do people speaking different dialects make distinctions in sounds that people speaking other dialects don’t make, but the people speaking those other dialects can’t even hear the differences that those people are making. They will say, “What do you mean those sounds are different? I can’t hear any difference between them. Are you playing some nasty joke on me when you claim that the way you pronounce those words has a difference between them?” This is why Keeve says, “they don’t understand what I’m talking about when I ask them about it.” ---
**Author:** ![BwanaBob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bwanabob/32/2985_2.png) [@BwanaBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BwanaBob)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2022, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-accents-ear-and-air/974503/9 "2022-11-07T14:06:28Z")
The Mary/Merry/Marry things drives me nuts (I hear and say them differently) because there are some people I’ve heard who claim they are the same, yet I hear them use the three different vowel sounds in other words. How can one claim they don’t hear the different vowel sounds, yet use them? ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2022, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-accents-ear-and-air/974503/10 "2022-11-07T14:16:26Z")
> [@BwanaBob](#): > > How can one claim they don’t hear the different vowel sounds, yet use them? Because the way one speaks is more unconsciously determined than consciously determined. If you grow up speaking a one-Mary dialect and move as an adult to a three-Mary area, you may then be picking up the three-Mary dialect without noticing it. But you might not notice that you have, so you may continue to claim that you still speak a one-Mary dialect. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2022, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-accents-ear-and-air/974503/11 "2022-11-07T14:16:41Z")
> [@doreen](#): > > I am from NYC and pronounce each one differently and I hear people from as far north as Albany pronounce them differently ( so it’s not just NYC). Maybe I just can’t hear it when they do. I couldn’t hear the differences in the video, only that they were drawn out. ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2022, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-accents-ear-and-air/974503/12 "2022-11-07T14:31:51Z")
I don’t hear a difference between his “merry” and “Mary”, but he’s definitely using a different vowel in “merry”. Try this, where I hear all three vowels. [http://www.alt-usage-english.org/mmm\_rf.wav](http://www.alt-usage-english.org/mmm_rf.wav) ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2022, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-accents-ear-and-air/974503/13 "2022-11-07T14:53:07Z")
That wants me to save something onto my computer. Either that, or it’s just not working right with this browser or computer. There is a page that opens in addition to a save box, but there’s nothing on it, and nothing that I can enable. ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2022, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-accents-ear-and-air/974503/14 "2022-11-07T15:21:53Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > That wants me to save something onto my computer. > > Either that, or it’s just not working right with this browser or computer. There is a page that opens in addition to a save box, but there’s nothing on it, and nothing that I can enable. Try [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-language_vowel_changes_before_historic_/r/#Sound_samples) (Wikipedia). It’s the first sound sample. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2022, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-accents-ear-and-air/974503/15 "2022-11-07T15:38:52Z")
> [@BwanaBob](#): > > The Mary/Merry/Marry things drives me nuts (I hear and say them differently) because there are some people I’ve heard who claim they are the same, yet I hear them use the three different vowel sounds in other words. > How can one claim they don’t hear the different vowel sounds, yet use them? Remember, most (almost 60%) of the US merges Mary-marry-merry. Yes, we have all these three different vowels that we use in other contexts. But before an “r”, they’re all kind of the same to us. We don’t make a distinction; we don’t hear a distinction (unless we concentrate very closely.) I bet there are sounds you make that you have trouble hearing the difference between even though you make them. Most people don’t pay that close attention to what they say vs what they think they say and what they hear vs what they think they hear. One possibility is do you distinguish the vowel in “caught” vs “cot.” In my dialect they are different. Like night and day for me. People from the merged dialect have a hard time hearing and understanding the difference. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2022, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-accents-ear-and-air/974503/16 "2022-11-07T15:53:03Z")
> [@SCAdian](#): > > Try [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-language_vowel_changes_before_historic_/r/#Sound_samples) (Wikipedia). It’s the first sound sample. It’s still trying to save something to my computer, instead of just playing in the browser. I know I’'ve used at least one pronunciation site that doesn’t do that, but don’t remember what it was. > [@pulykamell](#): > > before an “r”, they’re all kind of the same to us Preceding an “r” changes the sound of the vowel. Or limits the ways I can say it. Or something like that. > [@pulykamell](#): > > One possibility is do you distinguish the vowel in “caught” vs “cot.” In my dialect they are different. Like night and day for me. People from the merged dialect have a hard time hearing and understanding the difference. I do hear some difference, and I can clearly feel the difference in my mouth between “caught” and “cot”. – there’s a slight difference in the position of my lips between “Mary” and “merry”, but none between “Mary” and “marry”; and none in position inside my mouth for any of them. ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2022, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-accents-ear-and-air/974503/17 "2022-11-07T16:07:22Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > It’s still trying to save something to my computer, instead of just playing in the browser. Weird. What browser are you using? (I use Chrome.) Did you try both the archived text and the original? ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2022, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-accents-ear-and-air/974503/18 "2022-11-07T16:46:12Z")
> [@BwanaBob](#): > > The Mary/Merry/Marry things drives me nuts (I hear and say them differently) because there are some people I’ve heard who claim they are the same, yet I hear them use the three different vowel sounds in other words. > How can one claim they don’t hear the different vowel sounds, yet use them? This is an excellent example of what a phoneme is. The actual sound isn’t as important as the brain’s interpretation of the sound. Another example: “pat” vs “spat”. The typical English speaker would say these words are pronounced /pæt/ and /spæt/. And that description is good enough for other English speakers. But what we really say is better described as [pʰæt] and [spæt]. We aspirate the /p/ of “pat”, but not of “spat”. That distinction distinguishes sounds in some languages, but English speakers aspirate or not without even realizing it. > **[Phoneme](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoneme)** > > In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme (/ˈfoʊniːm/) is a set of phones that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. > For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west of England, the sound patterns /sɪn/ (sin) and /sɪŋ/ (sing) are two separate words that are distinguished by the substitution of one phoneme, /n/, for another phoneme, /ŋ/. Two words like this that differ in meaning through the contrast of a single... ---
**Author:** ![Tired\_and\_Cranky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a87d85/32.png) [@Tired\_and\_Cranky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tired_and_Cranky)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2022, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-accents-ear-and-air/974503/19 "2022-11-07T17:02:17Z")
> [@Keeve](#): > > But in the last 5 or 10 years or so, I have found some people, and increasing numbers of them, who pronounce “ear” and “air” exactly the same way. Can’t say I’ve noticed this. > [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > There is an area in the U.S. where people pronounce the three words Mary, merry, and marry differently. I’m from there. These are pronounced differently. What irks me is that the names Kerry and Carrie are also pronounced distinctly where I’m from. My neighbor pronounces her own name (Kerry) as I do but her husband pronounces it differently. Interestingly, they both grew up in the same town and went to the same high school, so they each in their merger picked a different version of it. I sometimes wonder if they both sound funny to each other or if they can’t hear that they are pronouncing it differently. My friend and my friend’s wife both pronounce her name (Carrie) like “Kerry.” I’m not sure whether I should pronounce it that way or whether, because of their merger, they don’t even notice if I pronounce it differently. Would I sound like I’m mocking them if i changed? > [@doreen](#): > > He’s definitely drawing them out , I assume to make it easier for people who pronounce them all the same to hear the difference. It’s not just drawing them out. Somehow, to my delicate ears, he misses the way Mary is pronounced, even when he tries to sound more natural about it. > [@SCAdian](#): > > I don’t hear a difference between his “merry” and “Mary”, but he’s definitely using a different vowel in “merry”. Interestingly, his Mary is also off to my ears. It’s closer to “merry” than is should be. I wonder if the “Mary/merry” merger is more common than the “merry/marry” merger and it’s harder to find people who pronounce them sufficiently differently. > [@pulykamell](#): > > One possibility is do you distinguish the vowel in “caught” vs “cot.” In my dialect they are different. Absolutely no difference to me. I would like to hear someone pronouncing them differently to see if I could even pick up on it. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2022, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-accents-ear-and-air/974503/20 "2022-11-07T17:11:00Z")
The linked page below has a good overview of the phonemes of various English dialects. You can see how easily our vowels slip around, while our consonants are mostly fixed. [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:English\_pronunciation](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:English_pronunciation) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/american-accents-ear-and-air/974503.md?page=2)