Here “bus” is pronounced like “buzz” and I didn’t realise it was weird until I went down to Devon and it was a dead giveaway that I’m a Brummie lol
Semmel
I think “buzz” is used a lot to people near Manchester too.
People from Bolton (UK) get very defensive about the exact pronunciation of Bolton too. I heard this conversation several times between two colleagues:
Colleague 1 (c1): "... that's because you're from Bolton" Colleague 2 (c2): "It's not Bolton, it's Bolton" C1: "What? That's what I said, Bolton" C2: "No, you said Bolton, it's Bolton" C1: "You're saying the same thing, Bolton" C2: "No, Bolton" C1: "That's what I'm saying!" Me: "what. the. FUCK"If you’ve ever seen Brooklyn Nine Nine and Jake would say “Nikolaj” and then Charles would correct him saying the exact same thing, it was exactly like that, but saying “Bolton” instead.
Also I heard several people from Wigan say “A packet of crisp” and not “A packet or crisps”.
Also forgot about this one: I used to live in South Wales, and people would say “Premark” instead of “Primark”. They’d think I was the weird one for saying it like Primark.
Never been to Wigan before, so til people from Wigan don’t refer to a packet of crisps in the plural!
For some reason almost every person in my city says “seen” where they should say “saw”. Drives me bananas.
Same here except it sounds like “sin” instead of “seen” like “I sin a guy at the shop today”
The single syllable words “four” and “hour” are actually the two syllable words “fohwer” and “ower”.
The words “anything” and “nothing” are pronounced “owt” and “nowt”.
The word “the” is not pronounced “t’”, it is simply replaced with an unvoiced glottal stop. The word “t’” is thus, actually, short for “to the”.
E.g.
Goin’ t’ shop. Wan’ owt?
means
I’m going to the shop. Do you want anything?
We also pronounce “bus” as “buzz”, too.
We also use “was” and “were” the wrong way round and say “pants” instead of “trousers”. The rest of the country seems unaware of that last one, and will accuse you of talking American.
Where do people talk like that?
Bolton. Bury. Wigan. Perhaps other parts of Lancashire, also.
Boston accents are funny. When my mother says, “where are the cah-keys”. My dad and I always say, “your car keys or khakis?”
We recently moved to a new area and there is a nearby town called Monticello. The locals all pronounce it mon-tee-sell-oh and will correct you if you say mon-teh-chel-oh. Doesn’t quite fit the question cause I think the locals are insane for that 😅
Spaniards: Montitheyo
Port Dalhousie (dal-oo-sy) in St Catherine’s. When it should be port (Dal-how-sy)
It’s apparently the only thing named for that dude pronounced that way too, Dalhousie University as an example. Wiki page has an etymology section that has some suggestions as to why, it’d sound weird to me though pronounced the other way.
Bavarians pronounce Chemie, China, Chlor, and others with CH starting, with a K! KEMIE, KINA, KLOR!
Bavarians there is so much go hate about you!
I was looking up Bavarian dialect terms and found “fesch” (attractive/stylish).
Vindication for Gretchen Wieners! “Das ist so fesch!”
How do you pronounce it? Schemie, Schina, Schlor?
Schlor? except that this one is in any case pronounced with hard K anything else seems ridiculous
also no need for the ‘s’, sounding out should initiate on the back of the tounge/larynx, if that makes sense
Charlottesville Virginia has a road spelled Rio but locals pronounce it with a long I (rhy-oh). Bonus points, the name originated from the road being route 10, marked with signs that said R10, which eventually became Rio.
NY state has a town named Chili that is pronounced—I kid you not—with two long I’s. “Chai-lai”
There’s also a town named Charlotte pronounced “shar-LOT”.
I feel like these are tests to detect out-of-towners.
It’s “Zed” not “Zee”
Say Jay-Z
Jay-Z
Fellow member of the zed crowd!! When someone says “zee” to mean zed it often sounds like they’re saying the letter c lol
Everyone knows the song goes “ex, why, zed. Now I know my ABCs, next time won’t you sing with med”
“X, Y, Z, now I know my alphabet so I can keep it in my clever head”
The song was written by an American so understandable that they’d do it with the wrong pronunciation.
wait that’s supposed to rhyme with the Z? It rhymes with the ‘me’ so it seems like it doesn’t need to rhyme with the Z
I said I know my ABCs, I didn’t say I know how to structure children’s songs. Next you’re going to expect me to be able to work AND be sober at the same time, SHEESH!
I’m told there are differences between “merry”, “marry”, and “Mary”, but I don’t believe it.
My ex got so mad because down here the boy name Don and the girl name Dawn sound about the same. He would yell no it’s not it’s DAAHN and DWAWN! But we don’t have that nasal Midwestern thing, it’s just Don and Daun.
In my area, “Don” is pronounced with the mouth wide, jaw open. Force a smile as you say it, and you should be in the ballpark.
“Dawn” is pronounced with the lips pursed. Kiss your grandmother on the cheek.
Depends where you are. Most in the US pronounce them the same, but they are all distinct in Philly for example. But we pronounce “berry” and “bury” the same.
I’m from NJ and Murray, merry, marry, and Mary are all distinct.
Berry is like merry and bury is like Murray.
I’ve lived in Philly and then the suburbs for a couple of decades now and have never noticed the berry-bury thing - I’m guessing it’s a South Philly thing? So do you eat straw’bury’s or do you ‘berry’ your dead pets?
I’m also from NJ, but I would be pressed to hear the difference between Marry and Mary tbh. The rest are all distinct though!
But I’m also told, when people find out I’m from NJ (online people), that “You don’t sound like you’re from NJ” so idk.
I was born here, so simply I must sound like someone from NJ cause I am! Logic.
Interesting! I think central, north, and south Jersey all have some distinctions in accent. Plus I think a lot of people have a pretty stereotyped idea of what New Jerseyans are “supposed” to sound like haha
Oh yes, people absolutely have an idea of what we’re suppose to sound like!
Once I start cursing like a sailor they go “oh okay yeah you’re from NJ” lmfao. I don’t curse nearly as much in text.
I get the rest, but how is “Mary” different?
Mary rhymes with fairy
That’s how I pronounce it. So now I’m even more confused! How is “merry” different? Because I pronounce that just like Mary.
Merry is like “meh” + “ree”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-language_vowel_changes_before_historic_/r/
Yes I would say “bury” like “berry”
I grew up in North Philly and South Jersey
It’s listed under Merry Murray merger in the wiki link
Interesting!
I haven’t lived there in a while and I don’t pronounce it that way anymore, but where I grew up, water is universally pronounced “wooder”.
You from NJ?
Yep.
My wife thinks it’s funny that most words with a “t” in the middle, I pronounce as "d"s… Butter is budder, better is bedder, water is wooder, etc…
Also, creeks are “cricks”.
The creek/crick thing is very regional even within New Jersey.
Oddawa? Torono?
Is the thing on top of a house called a roof or a ruff?
Lol, I’m here sounding it out and it sounds between ruff and woof…
Houston the city and Houston the street.
Crayon: crown
Caramel: CAR-mul
Pecan: peh-CAWN
Got any cricks nearby?
So you pronounce crayon like a kings hat/ tooth repair?
Yes. It’s not very common and seems to occur where regional differences merge.
True, I’m just used to hearing either Cray-on or Cran (like cranberries)
Also I know I struggle with colors sometimes… But I don’t see green or yellow on that map, just red and blue… Is that just me haha
Green is in the northwest corner of Wisconsin.
Yellow is honestly a terrible color choice for this map, because the pronunciation isn’t truly regional. I think it’s clustered along the edges of a few different red areas, mostly on the east coast and some Southern areas.
I actually think the author’s note about it being a merging of pronunciation makes sense, because I was raised in a transitional Southern dialect but my parents both have an east Midland dialect
Ah yes, the coloring company, crow-la
I pronounce Kraken phonetically - “krayken” - but the world seems to prefer “cracken”.
