So, I’m born & raised in Pennsylvania (Philadelphia area) been in TX – 20 plus years - My wife is born & raised in Dallas TX area EVERY year we get into a laughing discussion on MY pronunciation of M*rry Christmas > Mine is in line with where I was raised – in elementary school (Stoney Creek) we were taught that ER sounds like UR – thus MY Merry Christmas sounds like Murray Christmas – just like the boat that goes across the river is a Ferry (pronounced – yes - Furry Boat) not like a Tinkerbelle (Fairy) Boat. This year I did some research it – here’s the Wikipedia breakdown. Funny how it specifically calls out Philadelphia (I’m finally vindicated) Mary–Marry–Merry - merger One of the best-known pre-rhotic mergers is known as the Mary–marry–merry merger, which consists of the mergers before intervocalic /r/ of /æ/ and /ɛ/ with historical /eɪ/this merger is quite widespread in North America. The following variants are common in North America: 1. All three are kept distinct. This occurs primarily in the Northeast, e.g. in the accents of Philadelphia, New York City, Boston, and Providence, Rhode Island. In the Philadelphia accent the three-way contrast is preserved, but merry tends to be merged with Murray; likewise ferry can be a homophone of furry. Even my Ferry – Furry is on the same page !!! Hahaha. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-language_vowel_changes_before_historic_/r/ Just another day in the Dejewski home – our poor kids are gonna have a TX/PA mutated language. Gracyn calls her (TX tennis shoes) sneakers :) Thanks to Daddy with this being noted: MERRY (MURRAY) CHRISTMAS folks :) Carlotta Dejewski
Posted on: Thu, 25 Dec 2014 20:06:04 +0000
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