What's a regional pronunciation of a word that seems normal to you but is weird to people from other parts of the country?
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
I pronounce Kraken phonetically - "krayken" - but the world seems to prefer "cracken".
Houston the city and Houston the street.
I moved to AZ and I can now tell who is from here and who moved in from out of state by how they pronounce the town name Prescott.
I'm told there are differences between "merry", "marry", and "Mary", but I don't believe it.
I recently saw a video where a woman pronounced "drawer" as "draw".
Carpentry guru Norm Abrams always says "draw" too. "Let's see how the draws fit..."
Was it 3x3Custom Tamar?
Boiseans pronounce it boy-see, but everyone else pronounces it boy-zee. It makes it easy to tell who is from there
That's the opposite of Quincy where the naives call it Quinzy.
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".
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".
When I was in school, I had a teacher who insisted on pronouncing the word "across" as "acrosst".
My kid got a worksheet on the long A sound. She got through most of them but was stumped on the "lobster". I looked at it - Lobster, Crawfish, neither of those have a long A sound, what the heck?
Hours later it occurs to me.
OH, Craaay-fish? Who in the world calls them that? Nobody here. Where was this printed?
I lived in Louisville, KY briefly, and the official pronunciation is apparently “Luuhwuuhh”. You will be mocked if you get it wrong.
Not "loovul"? I need to brush up.
I live in the U.S., and my state capitol is spelled Pierre, but pronounced "peer".
I think that's ths slur of familiarity, like how people in New Orleans call it "norlans".
Boston area doesn't use "r".
The famous: "Can't pahk(park) your cah(car) in Havid(Harvard) Yad(yard)".
Sorry for the IG link
Ha, yeah .. can't hear it.
Do the British and Irish dialect quiz. It's really interesting to find out what words you use and how you pronounce them pinpoint where you grew up and where your family is from. I've got a mixture of London, Midlands and Devon and it's bang on!
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/02/15/upshot/british-irish-dialect-quiz.html
Paywall
I was able to do it without any sign in
Wash wahsh warsh Bag bahg beyg Oil oyel ohl
Melbourne.
Now most will read that and go Mel bourn. But in Australia we say Mel Bin.
A really easy way to tell if someone isn't an Aussie while there.
Old gen x Australian here, and pretty much everybody I know pronounces it Mel burn.
Is there a similar "tell" with how people pronounce Darwin?
To pass as local I say the Mel part clearly and mumble bu or bun at random, depending on the mood. So MELBu
But the real test is all the mumbling variations of Straya, AUSTRAia, etc
Elemen-tary or documen-tary
The tary pronounced like Terry. Apparently this is unusual outside of this region.
What region? I'm pretty sure that's standard.
Central New York. I've been called out on it many times by people from other places.
Both the US and UK pronunciations on this site are different from how we say it here. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/pronunciation/english/elementary
As I live in the south I hear my "how are you all doing" morphing into "howya'lldoin" and there's nothing I can do to stop it
Try switching to "how dost ye doeth?"
How do you pronounce oil?
I can never tell if my partner says gem or Jim. She had a moment the other day listening to her dad and looked at me and said holy shit this is what I sound like to you. She hadnt seen him in a bit
Shades of Jeff Foxworthy and his southern words.
Desk draw
Southern Baden Württemberg: everything is followed by 'li'.
Please, we must have some examples of this.
'Le' works too.
My doctor has an Impfung-Eckle (vaccination corner) and a Laborbänkle (lab bench).
No...li
North-East Netherlands. Besides the dialect, every sentence is ended with the word "ja", which means yes/yeah. It's like saying "It rains, yeah", or "Let's take a look, yeah". It's also drawn long, like jaaaa. Also, a lot of nouns are ended with "gie" in the dialect, making it a diminutive.
Houston is not pronounced "hews-ton", it's "hows-ton"
Hues-ton here
We pronounce d and t exactly the same way, so both sound like d to other people, but ofc we know from context which one is meant, always, therefore to us they aren't the same at all! :)
In the Maritimes, Dalhousie (the university) is pronounced: "dal-HOW-zee".
In Ottawa, Dalhousie (the street) is pronounced: "dal-HOOOOOO-ze".
I don't know why, but I find the Ottawa pronunciation really annoying.
I’m newish to the maritimes. For a good while when we got here I thought it was supposed to be like “dollhouse” >.>
In Iowa, USA:
In eastern MA, we have towns Berlin pronounced BERLin, Peabody pronounced PIBudee, Quincy pronounced QUINzee. I'm sure there's more I'm forgetting.
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.