It’s probably more like “may(o)ry” [mejɚi] than “mayry” [mejɹi].
I know it’s an affectation of the character – and an inconsistently applied affectation at that – but sometimes Jackee Harry’s Sandra would just about pronounce neighbor Mary’s name that way.
This is what I pick up, too, when a Mary/marry/merry “splitter” pronounces “Mary”. I hear a first syllable that, for me, is virtually indistinguishable from my own pronunciation of “mare”.
If you are from the east and you happen to go out visiting Oregon, just do not try to say “Oregon” while in the area, if you can help it.
Yeah, for that reason, and that reason only, I try not to speak to people from Oregon any more … or Nevada either. They’re very annoying on that subject.
For people who merge these sounds, they sound the same. This is why pronunciation threads can get confusing.
I spent a couple of weeks in Oregon quite a few years ago. Also quite a few years ago, but some time after that, I had occasion to say the word “Oregon” in the hearing of a grocery worker in New York State – I think it was part of a brand name that I was asking him about. He nearly hugged me with joy because I said it right; he was from Oregon and hadn’t heard the proper pronunciation in quite a while.
(It’s not all that tricky. It’s Or-e-gun, not Or-a-gone.)
ETA: around the same time as I went on the trip involving Oregon, I had a couple of friends who also drove around the country. They stopped at a gas station, once, and asked whether they were in Arkansas yet.
Unfortunately, they were . . .
(It’s not Ar-kan-sass. It’s Ar-kan-saw.
It’s not Kan-saw, though. English is weird.)
Wiki:
Those of you with the cot-caught merger: Do you pronounce the vowel as this man does in “hot” or “dogs”?
“hot” - accents with the merger don’t have the “caught” vowel. Everything is “cot.”
Where I am from (mergerland), you have that backwards. The “caught” vowel approximately matches the “saw” vowel, which is the pervasive “ah” sound that also occurs in “hot”. I have friends in Wisconsin, who have the vowel differentiation, and to me, their “hot” sounds higher than “caught”, trending more toward “hat” (a more palatized coloring).
When I hear the cot-caught merger, it seems to take, as you noted, various forms. Often, to my ears, the cot-caught have the same vowel that is somewhere in between my Chicago “ah” and “aw”, so, for me, describing it as both having the “ah” in “cot” or the “aw” in “caught” is inaccurate.
I live in Oregon and I had an assitant (would have been called a secertary in the old days), and we were dealing with state and federal salmon hatcheries. One of the largest one was the Willamette hatchery, pronounced something like Will-AM-ette.
She was from Chicago and there is a town somewhere called something similar but pronounced differently. It was a bit amusing when she would call the hatchery on the phone and I would over-hear, " you aren’t from here, are you, Jean?"
I pronounce Mary and merry the same, with a short e sound. Marry has a short a. Cot has a short o, and caught is pronounced “cawt”. Now I’m wondering if my wife and our kids would pronounce these words the same way. She grew up a few miles up the road, but they were closer to Baltimore than DC. Our kids grew up within spitting distance of DC.
Both merry and Murray rhyme with furry, yes. And very, and flurry, blurry, slurry,… Mary has the tense a that I use in bad, while marry has the lax a I use in sad. And as I said above, bad and sad don’t rhyme for me. One curiosity: When mad means angry, it has the same a as man; when it is Mad, short for Madison, it doesn’t. So I don’t know how to say Mad man, which I think is short for Madison Ave. man. Oh, and Ave. has the same a as Madison, not mad. These quirks are all detailed in the Wiki entry for Philadelphia accent.
Wilmette, I suspect (pronounced will-MET, locally).
Yeah. Two syllables, no “a” like in “Willamette.” First time I came across wines from that valley, I wasn’t sure if it was to be pronounced “will-MET” or “WILL-uh-MET” so I asked the guy at Binny’s (wine/beer/liquor superstore) and was informed it was “will-AH-mett,” which I wouldn’t have guessed, for whatever reason.
Actually, Will-AM-met (not AH).
Well, dammit, Willamette. The Binny’s guy done taught me wrong!
Bear, and beer… Bear Whiz Beer - YouTube