In Vermont, we generally just speak of “the Interstate”, as there are only two in the entire state and it’s only an issue where they cross, which is well away from the population centers of the state.
I grew up in Milwaukee*, and one of the pastors of our church was named Lawrence. We always pronounced it Lore-ints.
Thank you, I never knew what to call it, or what exactly was the “trigger” for adding an extra r. It’s a familiar feature of the non-rhotic accent around Boston as well. I’ve heard people refer to the “treer” in their backyard, and my boss (who’s a notoriously bad speller) used to keep the new designs he brainstormed in a folder labeled “Idears” until I removed the extraneous r. My fiance grew up in a local suburb, and although he consciously eliminated his Boston accent, he still refers to taking money out of his bank account as a “withdrawral.”
Yep, according to my fiance, each word sounds distinct from the others, but it’s all the same to me. It wasn’t until I moved to Boston that I learned the names Aaron and Erin are pronounced differently. It took me a little practice, but I can pronounce the short e sound in merry and erin now, but I still can’t hear or pronounce the different between Mary and marry. I just had him say them both for me several times, and I can maybe almost hear a distinction between the two, which he says he hears quite clearly.
*For non-US Dopers, Milwaukee is in Wisconsin, just north of Chicago. We have a northern Midwest accent that’s often mistaken for Canadian.
I couldn’t find the version I first heard of this song, in which, in an east coast Scottish way, “making” turns into “macking” and “marry” into “mairry”, all to add to the merry confusion.
Seriously, I cannot imagine how not to make a difference between “Aaron” and “Erin”, or “Mary” and “marry”, but all these differences are all good fun. How about “ferry” and “fairy”? If you had, for some reason, a need to take a ferry to somewhere, might it turn into a wish to take a small flying mythical creature along with you? Or, if (and yes, I know this is not likely, but I am having fun here) if you needed to ask directions to visit the town of Derry, would you be at risk or being directed to the nearest dairy?
And if “mary” and Mary" sound the same, what about “Harry” and “hairy”? “Parry” and “perry”? Ooh, all right: the last example is not likely to be encountered in everyday speech, admittedly.
Okay, now you’ve done it. I am forced to link to the Vocal Samples threads, in which we hear various posters declaim, “Mary was merry as she married Terry, but then Scary Larry got carried away and chased Barry’s hairy dairy cattle through the ceremony.”
Not wrong, I suppose, but just horrible to hear for anyone who doesn’t do it. Scottish people tend not to do it. I *would *have said that we don’t do it at all, but, with so many children and teenagers imitating “television language”, I suppose some do. Grrr, but I do dislike it though. A good example is when politicians start wittering on about a mysterious lady named “Laura Norder”.
Tangential thought - there are people who seem unable to distinguish between “w” and “wh”, to the extent that they seem to think that “whales” is the same as “Wales”, or that “which” is the same as “witch”. Such people will also be on my hit list for when I rule the world, together with the intrusive “r” people. Oh yes! great woe and misery and death there will be! Hah!
Bad news. That’s the normal pronunciation on this side of the pond. I remember being urged when I was a kid to enunciate my wh’s, but no-one speaks that way here; it’s pretty much died out. Thus, in the Southern Ontario street dialect, wen = when and wales = whales. I have a feeling other things are shifting too.
Yep, in my native dialect, a short e followed by r is pronounced like a long a. And as for Harry and hairy, are you suggesting that some people pronounce them differently? We are also prone to pronouncing milk “melk,” although I don’t think I picked up that part of the accent.
The 5, 10, 105, 406, and 605 are all ‘Interstates’. The 22 and 91 are ‘State Routes’. However they are limited access freeways. That is, they are indistinguishable from an Interstate freeway.
Also, they all have names. For example, the 5 is the Golden State Freeway or the Santa Ana Freeway, the 10 (Christopher Columbus Transcontinental Freeway) is the Santa Monica Freeway or the San Bernardino Freeway, and the 91 is the Gardena Freeway, Artesia Freeway, and Riverside Freeway.
I’m surprised we are this far into the thread and nobody has asked about the word “advertisement”. Normally, I hear it pronounced “add-ver-TIZE-ment”. However, my dad (born in Olympia, Washington, but was raised in Los Angeles) pronounced “add-VERT-iss-ment”.
He (and his parents, also from the American Northwest) also said “WAR-sh”, “WARSH-ing-ton”, and “KYOO-pon”. (To this day, I am confused about “KYOO-pon” versus “KOO-pon”.)
Finally, he also pronounced Caribbean as “cur-IBB-ee-uhn”, whereas I typically pronounce it “CARE-uh-bee-uhn”. I may have pronounced it differently than he did just to be rebellious, but don’t remember.
I was born in L.A. and now live in Northern Washington. I pronounce those words the same way your dad does.
Caribbean is the first link on a google search of “caribbean” “pronunciation”, though if you go to the Merriam-Webster entry for Caribbean the other pronunciation is first.
The M-W entry for advertisement had your dad’s pronunciation second, and not-your-dad’s pronunciation first.
I grew up there too. There is more than one Bawlamer accent - you have to pic the area to get it right. E.g. Dundalk, Towson, Pikesville and Highlandtown are all going to be different.
There are some Philly accents that are similar, btnot the well know South Philly one at all.
Southern, northern not so much, and the Baltimore accent(s) don’t really extend that much into the rest of Maryland except via migration. I would not classify it as a regional accent at all.
nod Here, there’s no real difference between an Interstate, a State Route, or (often) a Highway. They’re all limited-access, onramp-and-offramp, speed-limit-65ish roads, and are therefore called “Freeways”. The only exceptions are Highways, which are prone to changing back and forth between Freeway mode and Large-City-Street mode. We don’t have any such thing as “Expressways” or “Turnpikes”, nor do we have many toll roads. (The ones we do have are basically special lanes on the regular freeway that you can pay to go on, that usually is less trafficky. In order to go on it you have to have a special transponder, they don’t take cash. There are…two? of those, IIRC, in the greater LA area. They’re still pretty controversial.)
That does sounds like a different case from the British intrusive version. You won’t find a Brit saying “idears” (except maybe in Glasgow, in my experience) unless they’re tying very badly to do an American accent. Like on most BBC radio plays.
We are also prone to pronouncing milk “melk,” although I don’t think I picked up that part of the accent.