Merry Marry Mary

Question

Apparently some people pronounce these 3 words the same!

http://dialectblog.com/2011/09/21/marry-merry-mary/

Not me!

http://audioboo.fm/boos/478921-merry-marry-mary

Answer 1

Hmmm....I think mine sound exactly the same....Marry....Mary.....Merry......yep...the same...

Yep. Me too. Exactly the same. - MLucie, Sep 21, 2011

Answer 2

Merry and Mary are more alike.

Marry is totally different.

They're all totally different! It's like the article says "merry" has an e like in "pet" it's very short, "mary" has an a like in "fairy" it's longer. hee hee accents are so strange. Some people even pronounce "caught" and "court" the same! - rabbitwho, Sep 21, 2011

Oh, I know, I just meant that those two were closer. Mary is merry - close. I want to marry Mary - totally different. - Tosh, Sep 21, 2011

Ah that's true. I can't see how people can stop themselves getting confused if they treat these words like homophones. - rabbitwho, Sep 21, 2011

I pronounce them exactly the same and it's not confusing because they are all different parts of speech: noun, adjective, and verb. - RosaVerde, Sep 21, 2011

Answer 3

Mary and Marry are the same, Merry is pronounced differently, but that difference is slight lol.

This is about where I landed too after saying the three several times. - tc84, Sep 22, 2011

Answer 4

Ummm, in school (sixty years ago) I was taught that these words were given the exact same pronunciation, likewise berry and bury. I was also taught that "bury" might be pronunced as "burry" (rhymes with "furry") but "berry" (rhymes with Mary) was better. In various parts of England these would surely be given differing and more interesting pronunciations. What counts is whether or not the speaker/writer is understood by the listener/reader --- all other considerations should be secondary (contrary to what the teachers who instructed me 60 years ago had to say).

Answer 5

Interesting. I pronounce those words exactly alike.

Me too! - --Mariana--, Sep 21, 2011

Answer 6

Hmmm, I am with those who pronounce them differently, especially Mary and merry, marry sounds similar to merry, but not the same...

Answer 7

la pronunciación en la lengua española es muy fácil. Pero en la inglesa es difícil .

Oh my God ! Pronounciation in English is really difficult. I always have lots of problems

Answer 8

Hmm... "quite contrary".

So that's where the nursery rhyme comes from!

You mean you learned that song without pronuncing "mary" and cont"rary" the same way? - rabbitwho, Sep 22, 2011

Answer 9

Marry differs from the other two, for me. I'm from the mid-Atlantic east coast of North America.

Are we sure about our accents' origins?

(I pronounce "Are" and "our" differently. do you?)

Yeah they're way different :D "Are our friends here?" Would sound like a pirate if you said "are are" - rabbitwho, Sep 21, 2011

Yes, way different. Are like the letter R. Our is like hour. - Tosh, Sep 21, 2011

@rabbit - some schoolmates from long ago and far away that I knew did say "are are" - hehe :) - pesta, Sep 21, 2011

Hee hee! Our is.. well our is our to me, i don't know how to describe it. but hour is ow-er. - rabbitwho, Sep 22, 2011

Answer 10

Me marry Mary not merry likely Mary must marry harry and make merry .

You often speak in riddles mate. Poor Harry. ;) - EL_MAG0, Sep 22, 2011

I don't know, have you seen Mary she is drop dead gorgeous but too young for my old bones. - ray76, Sep 22, 2011

Answer 11

Mary merry marry Harry Larry ferry carry berry wary scary Perry Gary hairy dairy nary fairy Terry airy.

In my west-coast American accent, all these words have the same vowel sound.

Bury is a little iffy-- sometimes it is pronounced like the others but sometimes it's more similar to furry, as Lector said. Yes, we can change how words are pronounced whenever we want, just like envelope (en-velope) vs. envelope (on-velope) and aunt (ant) vs. aunt (ont).

Re: our vs. are, in this neck of the woods they are extremely similar, but I think very slightly different. When saying, "are our," we tend to slur the words together so it sounds like, "are're," and not, "are are."

Answer 12

For me Mary sounds a bit different.

Answer 13

Are there different names in spanish for them all? Probably...but just wondering what they are!

Answer 14

I pronounce them all three the same.

Answer 15

In SoCal, they are all pronounced the same way.

So are medal, metal, meddle, and (for some people) mettle.