In Season 2, Episode 6 of Carnivale (yes, two threads spawned by one episode) Brother Justin tells his congregation:
“Hallelujah, Ah-men.”
They all repeat, “Ah-men.”
He then says, “Ay-men, brothers and sisters.”
Why the difference in pronunciation? Does it mean something different? His “tone” was also different when he said it each way.
Or… was it a mistake? And if so, on who’s part? Writer, or actor? (If it was actor, I assume the director and editors were all asleep…)
Edit:
He’s a methodist minister, if that makes a difference. And the show is based in 1934.
I don’t know the program at all, but I’d suggest that there are a couple of distinctions between the two pronunciations. British English (and Australian too) favours Ah-men. American usage, from what I’ve heard, tends towards Ay-men. Additionally, Ah-men is linked with a more traditional liturgical usage, and especially so with hymns, as **Askance **notes. Ay-men suggests the more evangelical, revivalist forms of Christianity. Hence the different tone and the addition of “brothers and sisters”.
I always thought “Ay-men” was a more Southern-style inflection, like how people say “IN-surance” instead of “in-SURANCE”.
Growing up in the Jewish religion, I can also distinctly remember a third variation: Ah-main. I don’t know if this is just the Hebrew pronunciation of the word, or what. But it’s distinct from the other two.
For additional information, his character is played by Clancy Brown, who appears meticulous in his acting.
The character is from Russia, but moved to the U.S. at age 6, so no longer has an accent, and doesn’t use any Russian slang at all (except to occasionally call his sister by her given name). He has lived in California (San Bernardino) almost all his life.
I think panache45 nailed it.
The first part must have been the ending of a hymn or some written statement, and the second part was him agreeing with the sentiment. That makes sense given the context.
Wisconsin - There is no difference other than the speakers normal pronunciation of the word a. Around here people switch between the two, and regardless of you normal pronunciation they repeat it the way the minister just pronounced it. When they want to use it in a a song using the the ah sound lets you drag it out over several notes easier so it gets used more. This includes when the the minister and congregation intone their responses during the service. The use of the eh is almost exclusive to purely spoken text, because it doesn’t work as well in a musical sense.
Well, in that case, it depends on what word the “the” is preceding.
You would say, “thee elephant.” “Thee astronaut.” “Thee olive.”
Using the “thuh” form just sounds clunky, if it’s before a word starting with a vowel.
You would say, “thuh mirror,” “thuh shotgun,” “thuh flashlight,” “thuh watermelon.”
I guess it’s kind of analogous to “a” and “an.” “A” comes before worst starting with consonants, like “a washing mashine” or “a toothbrush.” “an” comes before words starting with vowels, like “an elephant” or “an operator.”
In this case, “thee” would be the equivalent of “an,” and “thuh” would be the equivalent of “a.”
But…now I have no idea how this ties into “Ay-men” versus “Ah-men.”
Yes, exactly. The article “a” is the same. Unstressed / ordinary: pronounced uh (a dog, a fish, a cow, amen). Stressed / emphatic: ay (A dog, A fish, A cow, a-men). Amen is usually pronounced with the second syllable stressed, so it’s only when you stress the first syllable that you get ay-men. Some Southern dialects stress the initial syllable (po-lice, in-surance, um-brella) where other Americans don’t, and I’d guess they also say ay-men as a matter of course.
edited to respond to Argent Towers: You’re correct that “the” is pronounced “thee” before vowels, but that’s just a side effect of the phonology. Articles don’t normally carry stress, so they get the schwa pronunciation unless something prevents it: either slowed-down speech, or a phonological context such as a following vowel (which we can’t do with a / an because “an” is the original), or emphatic speech.
I was coming into post that when I was growing up as a Roman Catholic, and we said the Mass in Latin, that it was always pronounced “ah-men” so the people who pronounce it that way probably had some lingering influence (having taken Latin, being Catholic, or growing up in traditionally Catholic area, for instance.)
It’s not just how his character was brought up to say it. He says it both ways within seconds of each other. I was thinking that there was some contextual meaning (such as, the first time was part of a reading, and the second time was in agreement of that reading), or perhaps there was a deeper religious meaning that went by me.
I think, based on most people’s responses, that it’s the contextual meaning, not the deeper religious meaning.