# Two People Pronounce Something the same EXACT Way: but they have different accents so one is wrong **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 7, 2014, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-people-pronounce-something-the-same-exact-way-but-they-have-different-accents-so-one-is-wrong/695052 "2014-08-07T20:28:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2014, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-people-pronounce-something-the-same-exact-way-but-they-have-different-accents-so-one-is-wrong/695052/21 "2014-08-11T00:47:01Z")
> [@CurtC](#): > > But my point was that the conversation couldn’t have happened the way he described it; that was his retelling of it but with him missing a key point. A southern girl would not have said " Not pin, PIN!" because she pronounces them exactly the same. She would have said “not a straight pin, but a writing pen!” and pronounced pen and pin exactly the same. And _my_ point was that, if the conversation _did_ happen the way she said it, then she _didn’t_ pronounce the two words identically. He just failed to hear the distinction, because it’s not a distinction that features in his variety of English. ---
**Author:** ![CoastalMaineiac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e8c25b/32.png) [@CoastalMaineiac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CoastalMaineiac)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2014, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-people-pronounce-something-the-same-exact-way-but-they-have-different-accents-so-one-is-wrong/695052/22 "2014-08-11T01:09:18Z")
[http://io9.com/5919805/the-science-of-accents](http://io9.com/5919805/the-science-of-accents) > [@](#): > > Babies are born with the ability to form any kind of sound. Put a kid in the right environment, with two different spoken languages, and they’ll be able to flawlessly speak them both, no matter how different and contradictory they are. An ornithologist even noted that, because she played bird calls in the car, her child was able to imitate different birds, and identify them by sound. At some point, though, we lose the ability to make certain sounds. **And before that happens, we lose the ability to hear them.** Emphasis mine. Just because your ears cannot hear the distinction, doesn’t mean Carrie’s ears cannot hear it. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2014, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-people-pronounce-something-the-same-exact-way-but-they-have-different-accents-so-one-is-wrong/695052/23 "2014-08-11T01:41:30Z")
Although people lose that ability after childhood, a competent linguist—particularly a phonetician—can regain it with study+practice. ---
**Author:** ![CoastalMaineiac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e8c25b/32.png) [@CoastalMaineiac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CoastalMaineiac)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2014, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-people-pronounce-something-the-same-exact-way-but-they-have-different-accents-so-one-is-wrong/695052/24 "2014-10-12T22:31:07Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > Although people lose that ability after childhood, a competent linguist—particularly a phonetician—can regain it with study+practice. This interests me. Do you have a cite? Preferably one that discusses the kinds of study and practice you must do to learn to distinguish the sounds? ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2014, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-people-pronounce-something-the-same-exact-way-but-they-have-different-accents-so-one-is-wrong/695052/25 "2014-10-12T23:16:26Z")
You mean,if two people say “cuber”, one of them is cutting meat into squares and the other one is having a missile crisis? My Danish lingustics instructor demonstrated it this way. Hold a feather an inch in from of your lips and say the two words “spin” and “pin”. Notice how only the second one blows a gust of air at the feather. “Spin” contains a Danish /p/, which is pronounced without the gust of air, even if there is no /s/ before it. But an English speaker cannot hear the difference. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2014, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-people-pronounce-something-the-same-exact-way-but-they-have-different-accents-so-one-is-wrong/695052/26 "2014-10-12T23:29:38Z")
The part of cerebrum which learns to distinguish phonemes is plastic only at a very early age. For example, English has two related phonemes D and T (which linguists sometimes write “th”); these are respectively voiced and aspirated. Thai has a _third_ related phoneme (which linguists write “t”) which is neither voiced nor aspirated. Although I’ve trained myself to _pronounce_ Tor Tow, when I _hear_ it, it usually seems to map (depending on speaker) to Dor or Thor. I sometimes have to inquire to be sure which consonant is being spoken! (Thai also has an unvoiced unaspirated Por Pla midway between English B and P.) Many Westerners learn Thai on their own: I’ve spoken to some who are _very_ conversant in the language, yet are still unaware of the existence of that third phoneme! Thus “Kiri” probably distinguishes “Carrie” and “Kiri” but her threshold separating the two vowels is different from OP’s. I had something similar happen for me. I met a guy, Len, who came from the part of U.S. that seems to pronounce pen as pin. Because he called himself “Lin” I started thinking of him that way, and even added him to my phonebook as “Lin.” :smack: Sometimes I’d call him “Lin.” – “Goddamn it,” he’d say, “my name’s not Lin it’s _ **Lin** _!” 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2014, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-people-pronounce-something-the-same-exact-way-but-they-have-different-accents-so-one-is-wrong/695052/27 "2014-10-12T23:52:39Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > My Danish lingustics instructor demonstrated it this way. Hold a feather an inch in from of your lips and say the two words “spin” and “pin”. Notice how only the second one blows a gust of air at the feather. “Spin” contains a Danish /p/, which is pronounced without the gust of air, even if there is no /s/ before it. But an English speaker cannot hear the difference. In phonetics, that’s the distinction between “unaspirated” and “aspirated” consonants. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2014, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-people-pronounce-something-the-same-exact-way-but-they-have-different-accents-so-one-is-wrong/695052/28 "2014-10-14T03:47:38Z")
> [@bienville](#): > > I met a woman last night named Carrie. > Because of her accent, when she says “Carrie” it sounds like “Kiri”. > [ul] > [li]Her: Hi, I’m Carrie. (sounding EXACTLY like “Kiri”)[/li][li]Me: Kiri? (sounding EXACTLY like “Kiri”)[/li][li]Her: No, it’s Carrie (sounding **EXACTLY** like “Kiri”)[/li][/ul] I pronounce Carrie like marry and Kerry like merry. (Kiri would be like bleary.) My friend doesn’t hear the difference in the two vowels sounds (or Mary for that matter), even when I show him exaggeratedly how my mouth is making a different shape.\* So there just must be a block. \*Picture “Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth?!” from that movie that time. ---
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2014, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-people-pronounce-something-the-same-exact-way-but-they-have-different-accents-so-one-is-wrong/695052/29 "2014-10-14T05:57:55Z")
> [@Ornery\_Bob](#): > > You think that you and she were making the same sounds, but you weren’t and she is simply attuned to subtle but real differences that you are not. There’s a little bit of a misperception here that’s worth clearing up. The differences between sounds don’t have to be subtle for someone not to be able to pick up on them. I had a conversation with a Chinese friend one day where I was trying to explain the difference in pronunciation between “lunch” and “launch”. She can’t hear the difference because it’s not important in her native language, even though no English speaker would confuse those two without significant background noise. ---
**Author:** ![MrAtoz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MrAtoz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrAtoz)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2014, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-people-pronounce-something-the-same-exact-way-but-they-have-different-accents-so-one-is-wrong/695052/30 "2014-10-14T12:49:03Z")
> [@gigi](#): > > I pronounce Carrie like marry and Kerry like merry. (Kiri would be like bleary.) My friend doesn’t hear the difference in the two vowels sounds (or Mary for that matter), even when I show him exaggeratedly how my mouth is making a different shape.\* So there just must be a block. I’m not thrilled with the word “block,” but I’m very much like your friend. I cannot hear–and indeed, cannot even imagine–a difference in pronunciation of those words. Not even when people are (they assure me) exaggerating the pronunciation to illustrate the differences. This is what I hear: “The girl’s name? That’s Mary. And what happens at a wedding? That’s Mary. And when you’re happy? That’s Mary. See? They’re completely different!” I can only shake my head. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2014, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-people-pronounce-something-the-same-exact-way-but-they-have-different-accents-so-one-is-wrong/695052/31 "2014-10-14T13:30:25Z")
> [@MrAtoz](#): > > …I cannot hear–and indeed, cannot even imagine–a difference in pronunciation of those words. Not even when people are (they assure me) exaggerating the pronunciation to illustrate the differences. This is what I hear: > > “The girl’s name? That’s Mary. And what happens at a wedding? That’s Mary. And when you’re happy? That’s Mary. See? They’re completely different!” I can only shake my head. I sentence you to ten years exile in New Jersey. You’ll recognize the difference by the end of the first month. ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2014, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-people-pronounce-something-the-same-exact-way-but-they-have-different-accents-so-one-is-wrong/695052/32 "2014-10-14T13:34:53Z")
> [@ultrafilter](#): > > There’s a little bit of a misperception here that’s worth clearing up. The differences between sounds don’t have to be subtle for someone not to be able to pick up on them. I had a conversation with a Chinese friend one day where I was trying to explain the difference in pronunciation between “lunch” and “launch”. She can’t hear the difference because it’s not important in her native language, even though no English speaker would confuse those two without significant background noise. Your example is only “not subtle” to you… well, and me, and quite a lot of other people, but my point is that just as with the subtle differences mentioned by the post you reply to, it depends on who’s doing the defining. The OPs “Kiri” may consider the differences as substantial as those between “lunch” and “launch”. ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2014, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-people-pronounce-something-the-same-exact-way-but-they-have-different-accents-so-one-is-wrong/695052/33 "2014-10-14T14:17:23Z")
> [@naita](#): > > Your example is only “not subtle” to you… well, and me, and quite a lot of other people, but my point is that just as with the subtle differences mentioned by the post you reply to, it depends on who’s doing the defining. The OPs “Kiri” may consider the differences as substantial as those between “lunch” and “launch”. Yeah, the difference, to me, between Mary and merry is easily as stark as the difference between lunch and launch. I actually have no idea which of the three vowel sounds (Mary/merry/marry) people without the accent use to represent all three of those sounds, because when I try to replicate it, I’m choosing between one of three distinct ways of saying it, whereas I think people without the accent have some fourth way of doing it that is sort of in the middle. A big part of it is that not only are we used to using the different sounds, we’ve experienced the difference in the way our mouths move when we use them. Telling me (a Philadelphian) that it’s hard to imagine a difference between Mary and merry (or lunch/launch) is like telling me that there’s no difference between smiling and frowning - I’ve done these things thousands of times and I can feel what happens when I do. ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2014, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-people-pronounce-something-the-same-exact-way-but-they-have-different-accents-so-one-is-wrong/695052/34 "2014-10-14T14:29:15Z")
> [@MrAtoz](#): > > I’m not thrilled with the word “block,” but I’m very much like your friend. I cannot hear–and indeed, cannot even imagine–a difference in pronunciation of those words. Not even when people are (they assure me) exaggerating the pronunciation to illustrate the differences. This is what I hear: > > “The girl’s name? That’s Mary. And what happens at a wedding? That’s Mary. And when you’re happy? That’s Mary. See? They’re completely different!” I can only shake my head. I’m from New England so I pronounce ‘Marry’, “Mary” and “Merry” all very differently, but outside the northeast, most people don’t. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2014, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-people-pronounce-something-the-same-exact-way-but-they-have-different-accents-so-one-is-wrong/695052/35 "2014-10-14T15:36:13Z")
> [@Hector\_St\_Clare](#): > > I’m from New England so I pronounce ‘Marry’, “Mary” and “Merry” all very differently, but outside the northeast, most people don’t. Understood, but I’m talking about someone who doesn’t hear the difference even when they are pronounced differently. ---
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanub/32/132_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUB)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2014, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-people-pronounce-something-the-same-exact-way-but-they-have-different-accents-so-one-is-wrong/695052/36 "2014-10-14T15:54:16Z")
“Not The Craw . . . the _CRAW_”! As I believe someone already said, if they have different accents they aren’t pronouncing it the same exact way. My own name rhymes with “marry” as pronounced by a West coaster. I’ve had more than one East coast native imply I pronounce it incorrectly. “Oh, it’s not Terry, it’s TAAARY”. Not in SoCal it isn’t :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2014, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-people-pronounce-something-the-same-exact-way-but-they-have-different-accents-so-one-is-wrong/695052/37 "2014-10-14T16:05:58Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > In phonetics, that’s the distinction between “unaspirated” and “aspirated” consonants. And is one of the things that distinguishes a fluent speaker of many languages from one who is not. A native Spanish speaker would not say “tah-ko” like a native English speaker, but more like “t’ahko”. ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2014, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-people-pronounce-something-the-same-exact-way-but-they-have-different-accents-so-one-is-wrong/695052/38 "2014-10-14T16:50:49Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > And is one of the things that distinguishes a fluent speaker of many languages from one who is not. A native Spanish speaker would not say “tah-ko” like a native English speaker, but more like “t’ahko”. Yes, English aspirates unvoiced consonants at the start of words but not in the middle. Many other languages either don’t aspirate at all, or they have distinct sets of aspirated and unaspirated consonants. Some Indian languages, for example, distinguish the two so that ‘k’ and ‘kh’, ‘g’ and ‘gh’, ‘b’ and ‘bh’, ‘ch’ and ‘chh’, ‘j’ and ‘jh’, etc. are distinct sounds. This is why ‘Ghandi’ is a bad misspelling of ‘Gandhi’- in Hindi, the two sets of phonemes are entirely different and the two words aren’t homophones. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2014, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-people-pronounce-something-the-same-exact-way-but-they-have-different-accents-so-one-is-wrong/695052/39 "2014-10-14T17:13:42Z")
> [@gigi](#): > > I pronounce Carrie like marry and Kerry like merry. (Kiri would be like bleary.) There is kind of a big difference between “Kiri” and “bleary”. The guttural (“K”) lends a glide to the attack of the vowel in many dialects of English, which would not be present in “bleary”. That is probably what Carrie was hearing: the “ar” part is not supposed to be pronounced that way, to her “Kiri” sounded like “Kyiri”, where the vowel attack was actually suppose to be flat (lacking the “y” glide). ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2014, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-people-pronounce-something-the-same-exact-way-but-they-have-different-accents-so-one-is-wrong/695052/40 "2014-10-14T17:30:09Z")
[Zathras](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zathras) understands problem. Also his brother Zathras. And his brother Zathras. And his baby brother Zathras. Zathras understand problem very well. Very sad when someone addresses Zathras as one of his brothers. But Zathras is used to it. > [@Wikipedia](#): > > [Zathras] also refers to himself in the third person, although sometimes instead of himself he refers to his brothers, as the story mentions that Zathras is one of 10 different brothers whose names all sound nigh-indistinguishably like ‘Zathras’. This fact is revealed by a younger brother of the first Zathras—the second Zathras to be seen—who may appear twice as “War Without End” features Tim Choate in a dual role as two Zathrases discussing the condition of the great machine. **It is explained that the way to differentiate one Zathras from another is to listen to the inflection of the name. However, as he demonstrates the differences to Ivanova, she (and the audience) are unable to detect any difference between one and the others.** [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-people-pronounce-something-the-same-exact-way-but-they-have-different-accents-so-one-is-wrong/695052.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/two-people-pronounce-something-the-same-exact-way-but-they-have-different-accents-so-one-is-wrong/695052.md?page=3)