I’m from Indiana, born and raised, and all my life prounounced the word “been” (past participle of “be”) as “ben.”
Until 10 or so years ago, when I noticed that dictionaries recognized the pronunciations “bean” and “bin” for the word. I figured that “ben” was a Midwestern dialectical shame and switched to “bin” (I also began to pronounce the “wh” in words like “white,” “wheat,” etc.).
Today, on NPR, however, the announcer (local Indiana talent, I believe), said “BEN” as clear as day, and I was once again made curious as to what the Straight Dope on this was.
I just looked at www.m-w.com. No “ben.” I just looked at the American Heritage Dictionary–just “bin” (perhaps because “bean” is “chiefly British,” as M-W says).
This seems odd to me, because dictionaries usually note and explain a regional pronunciation, and I suspect “ben” is said by quite a few people. Is it just a very local Indiana thing? Help me out!
I grew up in Baltimore, MD. Bin was the only pronunciation I heard there until about ten years ago, when ben began showing up. I have the feeling that ben is becoming more prevalent. Bin predominates where I live now, in southern Ohio.
“Ben” is the normal and correct pronunciation because that’s what I grew up with.
“Bin” is used by those who can’t tell the difference between a short E and a short I – the folks who have to say “ink pen” so that when they ask for a pen you don’t give them a pin.
“Bean” is used by those who cannot accept that not every letter in every word is part of the pronunciation – the folks who pronounce the T in “often.” Also by some Brits and Canadians, but what do they know?
I always pronounce it as “bin”. I spent the first five or six years of my life in northern South Carolina and the next ten or eleven in central Indiana. I haven’t taken much notice of those around me, but I think everyone I know also says “bin”.
I grew up in Nebraska and Illinois and I say “ben.” I think. But I tend to pronounce words somewhat differently when pronouncing them deliberately as individual words while trying to hear how I pronounce them. As far as I can recall, my relatives from Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota and Illinois all say “ben,” too. In northern California I think most people must say something close to “ben” – if they were saying a strong “bin” or “bean” I think it would have caught my attention by now.
It’s likely that people I know have pronuciations along a continuum between “bin” and “ben.”
I’m not sure what’s going on with the dictionaries’ pronunciations, but I’ll guess they’re not as carefull as you think at documenting all the regional variations. For example, as Liberal has pointed out “pen” and “pin” are pronounced identically in many parts of the south, including an area of Texas where one of my friends comes from. In some other places, “pen” sounds almost as if it has two syllables – are these variations documented in the dictionaries you’re looking at?
