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How do you pronounce "Mary", "merry" and "marry"?
Do you pronounce them all differently?
What vowel do you use in
"parent", "Harold", "vary", "Sarah", "Clara", "Tara", "hilarious", "Gary"
as in "scare" or in "marry"?
How do you pronounce "mirror" and "nearer"?
Do they rhyme perfectly for you?
What vowel do you use in
"lyrics", "tyranny", "spirit", "syrup", "miracle"?
is it the vowel of "hit" or "beer"?
How do you pronounce "hurry", "incourage", "nourish", "squirrel", "stirrup"
With the vowel of "but" or as in "furry"?
How do you pronounce "courier"?
How do you pronounce "interest", "address" (noun)
How do you pronounce "Warwick"?
Do you pronounce "veterinary" as "vetnary"?
"quarter" or "corter"?
"quahog" is it "kwa-hog" or "co-hog"?
Sotawudder, it is more complex than just dropping R's. Linguistics (the science behind language) gets way more detailed than just dropping R's.
Yerk, as a linguistics student, I can tell you most people on CD won't be able to answer your questions because they have no idea what you're talking about. Most people aren't linguistically aware enough. You'd be better off watching YouTube videos of people in RI and picking up on the distinctions yourself. To add, most people aren't familiar with IPA symbols like ɑ and ɔ so you have to define it for people. For example, you can say something like ɑ is the like the "a" in "father" and ɔ is like the "o" in "old".
People just drop their "r's". Its not nearly this complicated.
Actually it is. I don't have my handy dandy linguistics companion with me but, with respect to some of the rules listed, the following is pretty much true:
For most of the state south of the very far north (near MA), bong, gong, foreign, forest, would be pronounced as follows: bahng, gahng, fahren, fahrest ... well you get the idear! This is distinctly different from eastern MA, where the same words would be pronounced as bawg, gawng, fawren, fawrest, etc. And, of course, there's my personal favrit: dawktah (MA for doctor).
How do you pronounce "Mary", "merry" and "marry"?
Mere-ry, Meh-ry, Mah-ry
Do you pronounce them all differently?
yes
What vowel do you use in
"parent", "Harold", "vary", "Sarah", "Clara", "Tara", "hilarious", "Gary"
short a
as in "scare" or in "marry"?
"sceer" "mah-ry" These vowels sound very different in these 2 words.
How do you pronounce "mirror" and "nearer"?
"Mere-uh" "Near-uh"
Do they rhyme perfectly for you?
yes
What vowel do you use in
"lyrics", "tyranny", "spirit", "syrup", "miracle"?
is it the vowel of "hit" or "beer"?
"beer"
How do you pronounce "hurry", "incourage", "nourish", "squirrel", "stirrup"
With the vowel of "but" or as in "furry"?
hurry, nourish...like "but"
Squirrel and stirrup...like "furry"
How do you pronounce "courier"?
"curry-er" Most would say "curry-uh"
How do you pronounce "interest", "address" (noun)
"in-trest" "Ahh-dress" (ahh as in "pad thai")
How do you pronounce "Warwick"?
"Wor-wick",,,but MANY RIers say Warrick
Do you pronounce "veterinary" as "vetnary"?
More like "Vet-in-ary"
Of course this does not represent EVERYBODY in RI...but I am pretty sure you are looking for the average pronunciations, and I think this is pretty average
MBRRT, thanks for taking the time. If it's okay with you, there's a couple more questions I forgot to add to my survey.
1. Words "sure", "insurance", "tour", "moor", "Coors", "Moore", "boor", "pure", "curious", "fury", "during", "endure", "rural", "bureau"
(for example, do you pronounce "sure" as "shoo-er" or as "shore")
2. You wrote that "parent", "Harold", "vary", "Sarah", "Clara", "Tara", "hilarious", "Gary" take the vowel of "marry". A couple of additional words: "wary", "garish", "Clara", "various"
3. The "quarter-corter". Are "quote" and "turquoise" pronounced as "coat" and "turkoiz" as well?
MBRRT, thanks for taking the time. If it's okay with you, there's a couple more questions I forgot to add to my survey.
1. Words "sure", "insurance", "tour", "moor", "Coors", "Moore", "boor", "pure", "curious", "fury", "during", "endure", "rural", "bureau"
(for example, do you pronounce "sure" as "shoo-er" or as "shore")
sure= Shoo-er
insurance= in-sher-ence
tour= torr
moor= just like torr but with an m
coors=cores
moore=same as moor
pure=pyur (does this make sense? kinda sounds like "yer"
curious=cure-ee-us
fury=fyur-ee
during=duhr-ing
endure= en-duhr
rural= rer-rull
bureau= byer-roh
2. You wrote that "parent", "Harold", "vary", "Sarah", "Clara", "Tara", "hilarious", "Gary" take the vowel of "marry". A couple of additional words: "wary", "garish", "Clara", "various"
wary= just like "weary" (weary and wary said exactly the same)
garish= gah-rish
clara= clah-ruh
various=vah-ree-us
3. The "quarter-corter". Are "quote" and "turquoise" pronounced as "coat" and "turkoiz" as well?
no, quote, is = kwote (same sound as the "qu" in quick)
turquoise= turk-oise
Hope these help...I never knew how hard it is to try and describe in writing how people say things
Thanks, these are really helpful) Just to clarify if I got this right:
"sure" (shoo-er) does not rhyme with "tour" (tore)?
during, endure - something like "doo-ring", "endoo-uh"?
pure, insurance, fury, rural, bureau, curious - these words use the vowel of "her", right?
(what about consistant R-droppers?
Do they say something like "pyoo-uh, in-shoo-uh-rance, fyoo-uh-ry, roo-uh-ral, etc."?
..and one last thing to clarify
"Florida", "horrible", "foreign", etc. usually take the vowel of the word "door"?
("Flahrida", "hahrrible", "fahrin" are less common I suppose?)
I hope you're not looking for a scientific 100% accurate answer, because you won't get that here. In fact, you won't get that without actually talking to a bunch of RI'ers from all over the state. There are different accents in Cranston, Johnston, North Providence, Woonsocket, and South County.
If you really want some good data, give people a list of words and have them record themselves saying it.
BTW- I'm not originally a RI'er, I have a New Haven area accent, which has it's own set of quirks.
Yerk, I'm a 42 year old Rhode Islandah from
Craaaannn-stin so I'll take a shot at your words.
- we don't have a Brooklyn accent, so "dolphin" is dahl-fin
and not "dawl-fin". Chocolate is "chah-klit", not chaw-klit.
- quahog is "kaww-hawg".
- alzheimer is "awwls-hy-mah".
-almond is "al-minnd". not "awl-mond" (once again not Brooklyn)
-Mary, Merry, Marry are all totally different.
- vary is "vaih-ree", not "varry".
- mirror = "meer-uh"
- nearer = "neer-uh" yes they rhyme.
-courier = "curry-ah"
warwick = waw-wick
veterinary = "vet-rin-ary". emphasize the "t"
quarter = "kaww-tah"
futile = "fyoo-tyyal"
reptile = "rep-tyyal" etc
adolf = "ayy-dahlf" or ayy-dawwf.
wallace = "waww-luss"
beer = "baih" like as in "air" with no "r".
and Boston is "Baww-Stin", not "Bahh-Stin" as they say in Mass.
most say "shure" and not "shaw", like orange is "ahh-rinj", not "aww-rinj".
tourquoise = "turr-kwyyzz"
Florida = "Flah-rid-uh"
all set ?
Last edited by Snowball7; 05-31-2011 at 02:06 PM..
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This is distinctly different from eastern MA, where the same words would be pronounced as bawg, gawng, fawren, fawrest, etc. And, of course, there's my personal favrit: dawktah (MA for doctor).
