SPERR, always.
We went over this in August 2021: Your Pronunciation - #126 by alovem
Somewhere in that thread, I insisted that other cast members of The Big Bang Theory pronounce it like Sheldon (ex-PEER-eh-ment), including Amy Farrah Fowler. After having seen more of the show, I’m pretty sure she doesn’t, but think one or two others do, at times.
No, this falls into the Mary/Merry/Marry zone. Perry and Pairy are not pronounced the same.
ex-PEAR-ment
or
ex-PEER-ment
The PEAR/PEER difference is barely discernible when I say it, with the ‘i’ in the middle completely elided. If I’m deliberately enunciating it will come out as ex-PEAR-i-ment,
Being a native New Yorker, this confounds and will confound me for the rest of my life.
In the Upper Midwest all I’ve ever heard was “ex-SPEER-a-ment”. The “SPARE” version is definitely a southern accent to my ear.
I’m Great Lakes (Chicago) and the “spare” pronunciation feels more normal to me, though, as I said previously, I vaccilate.
I come from the ‘other’ zone on that map but pronounce all three differently. I have lived in the other zones during my life which I think shifted my original Balmer Merlin drawl into the sweet spot of pronunciation for most words. Up here in that bluish New England one now it can be difficult to understand people who call a ‘cored brick’ a ‘code brick’, they have no problem with the ‘R’ in ‘brick’ but can’t stick it in the word ‘cored’. They don’t understand ‘don’ and ‘dawn’ are pronounced differently, including people who have those names. And here is RI they have hopelessly combined Connecticut Yankee, Brooklynese, and Hahvahd Yahd into a new language.
Now I’m curious how you folks pronounce experience.
ex-PEER-ee-əns
^ as above
ex-PIRR-ee-ənce
We pronounce it expurment down here in the South.
For me the first two syllables of both words are identical; eck-SPEER-i-ment, eck-SPEER-ee-ence
Eks-pier-i-ment
Other.
How do you say
Syrup
Turquoise
Sih-rup with the “ih” sound representing an “i” as in “hit” /ɪ/
Tur-koice or sometimes tur-koyz
I pronounce the word with the “pear” sound in it.
Where I used to live is a street called Experiment Station Road. I’ve had occasion to work at a couple jobsites on that road and the two residents I interacted with had each taken to calling it something like 'spearmint station road," as fully pronouncing the name over the years had probably become tiresome for them.
Wiktionary lists both /spɛɹ/ and /spɪɹ/ for the US, and just the former for UK.
CHURR-Koys, for some reason.