Do "thing" and "sing" rhyme to you?

[RickJay]

Duplicate post.

[jjimm]

@Leaffan

What are talking aboot?

I met a very drunk Canadian last night and managed to make him say “out and about, eh” for my amusement. I was surprised to hear that to my ears he said “oat and aboot”.

[CanvasShoes]

Wet and get both rhyme for me as do thing and sing. I grew up in Alaska (we really don’t have accents).

[CanvasShoes]

@bouv

And ring rhymes with thing…

I mean…I know some people have accents/pronounciations that aren’t the same, but you must know that pronouncing “thing” as “thang” is very regional, and that most people don’t pronounce it that way? I mean…surely you’ve heard people in movies/TV pronounce it as “thing.” Or is it one of those things (thangs?) where you sort of hear what you want to hear?

Reminds me of my sister complaining about her students. Many of them will say,
"You, can I axe (aks?) you something?
And she’ll say
“No, but you can ask me something.”
They’ll go,
“That’s what I said…axe!”

She’ll go around and around with them, saying they need to pronounce it as “ask,” but they don’t get it, because they are so conditioned to “axe,” that to them, “ask” IS “axe.”

Either that, or they are being BLINDINGLY obtuse, even for 12 year olds (and many of them are good students, very intelligent, etc…so it’s not like they’re doing it on purpose to be a smart-ass.)

Tell them it’s asskicking, without the icking. (axe drives me bonkers too, it’s not max for mask, or tax for task is it?).

[Dr.Drake]

@CanvasShoes

Wet and get both rhyme for me as do thing and sing. I grew up in Alaska (we really don’t have accents).

So do you speak simultaneously with an Australian, British, Irish, South African, Indian, etc. accent, or do you speak with an accent that Australians, British, Irish, South Africans, Indians, etc., would be unable to place at all?

[matt_mcl]

@Onomatopoeia

Wow. Another ‘theng’ person. I have never heard anyone pronounce ‘thing’ as ‘theng’. I’m now wondering how common this is.

I do remember from dialectology that there’s a dialectal area in southern Ontario and the northern Midwest where “bed” is moving toward [bæd] (like “bad”), in which case “bid” might well be moving towards [b3d] (like “bed”).

[RickJay]

@CanvasShoes

Wet and get both rhyme for me as do thing and sing. I grew up in Alaska (we really don’t have accents).

So you’re mute?

[4everkid]

@BetsQ

Oh, good lord.

I pronounce “get” with a short i sound - “git.” “Wet” has a more standard short e.

“Thing” is more like “thang” - in fact, this is one of those words that took me forever to learn to spell, because I could never remember which vowel went in there. “Sing” has I guess a long e vowel sound. I can’t even try to make them rhyme without it sounding weird. I’m going to go ask people to read that page for me.

My accent is primarily Midwestern (St. Louis) with a dash of rural Kentucky, but perhaps this is my own idiosyncrasy.

I’m with you BetsQ!
But not quite “thang”, that rhymes with “bang.” The i in “thing” sounds more like the the ai sound in “rain” or the ey sound in “they”… “theyng.” Although.. if I say “nothing” or “something” it rhymes with “sing.”

And ditto on “get” sounding like “git.”
I know “thing” is supposed to rhyme with “sing”, and that “get” is supposed to rhyme with “wet.” They just don’t come out of my mouth that way.

I’m in Missouri.

[Acsenray]

@4everkid

But not quite “thang”, that rhymes with “bang.” The i in “thing” sounds more like the the ai sound in “rain” or the ey sound in “they”… “theyng.” Although.. if I say “nothing” or “something” it rhymes with “sing.”

I hinted at this in post 128.

[njtt]

British here. Both pairs rhyme.

However, Mary, merry and marry are all quite different.

[Onomatopoeia]

@njtt

However, Mary, merry and marry are all quite different.

They are for me as well.

[panache45]

@CanvasShoes

I grew up in Alaska (we really don’t have accents).

Ok, but you do have dialects . . . right?

[kittenblue]

@njtt

British here. Both pairs rhyme.

However, Mary, merry and marry are all quite different.

Even though I listen to a lot of accents, I have never heard or understood this one. Any distinctions in the way I say Mary, merry and marry are so small and subtle as to be non-existent. Where can I hear a recording of these three words pronounced so vastly different from one another as to leave no uncertainty to the hearer as to which is being spoken?

[shijinn]

@BetsQ

… Bwah? Surely, those words don’t actually rhyme in anyone’s accent, do they? If you do think they rhyme, where are you from?

this thread is really interesting to a non-native speaker.

wet
get

thing
sing

i understand accents will change a word’s pronunciation, but to not be able to see that it can rhyme..

[Musicat]

@BetsQ

My accent is primarily Midwestern (St. Louis) with a dash of rural Kentucky, but perhaps this is my own idiosyncrasy.

My upbringing was initially St. Louis, too, and the OP’s both examples rhyme jes’ fine wit me.

@4everkid

I’m in Missouri.

Is that Missour-uh or Missour-ee?

[Pai325]

@RickJay

Where do you live? I don’t know of a native English accent where those vowel sounds are the same’ I’mcurious as to where this is.

The above quote refers to the post saying that “We three kings sing,” and “eating green peas,” all have the same vowel sound.

They do for me as well. Long e. I grew up in Chicago and now live in southern Illinois.

[kittenblue]

@shijinn

this thread is really interesting to a non-native speaker.

wet
get

thing
sing

i understand accents will change a word’s pronunciation, but to not be able to see that it can rhyme..

Exactly! I remember being taught in a poetry class in college that rhyme in poetry is often not a matter so much of identical sounds but of similar sounds and visual matches as well.

[Acsenray]

@kittenblue

Even though I listen to a lot of accents, I have never heard or understood this one. Any distinctions in the way I say Mary, merry and marry are so small and subtle as to be non-existent. Where can I hear a recording of these three words pronounced so vastly different from one another as to leave no uncertainty to the hearer as to which is being spoken?

I’ll look for an audio source, but in the meanwhile I can ask you if you can conceive that the words pate, pet, and pat can be pronounced unambiguously distinctly? The distinctions are essentially the same.

[SciFiSam]

@kittenblue

Even though I listen to a lot of accents, I have never heard or understood this one. Any distinctions in the way I say Mary, merry and marry are so small and subtle as to be non-existent. Where can I hear a recording of these three words pronounced so vastly different from one another as to leave no uncertainty to the hearer as to which is being spoken?

You might not hear the differences if you’ve grown up hearing those vowel sounds as the same - as others said above, if you don’t hear certain sounds in babyhood it’s different to learn to hear them later. Trust me, for me the vowel sounds in Mary, merry and marry are very different - I’m not pretending they are just to confuse people.

Mary = mɜ:rɪ
Marry = mærɪ
Merry = merɪ

Even without knowing the IPA or being able to hear the differences between the sounds, you can see that they really are different vowel sounds in my accent.

[RickJay]

@Pai325

The above quote refers to the post saying that “We three kings sing,” and “eating green peas,” all have the same vowel sound.

They do for me as well. Long e. I grew up in Chicago and now live in southern Illinois.

Actually, I could see how they could sound quite similar in a Chicago accent; they’re a very distinctive trait of Chicago speech.