Those are all the same for me, too. There’s a scene in It’s a Wonderful Life where Mary’s mother is trying to get her to answer the phone, and my ears hear ”Meery, he’s waiting!”.

I pronounce it like it rhymes with contrary.

”Meery, he’s waiting!”

UGH! Reminds me of Eliz McGovern in Downtown Abbey, always said with head cocked to the side and in a patronizing manner. How she ever got nominated for an Emmy and a Golden Globe for that role leaves me scratching my head, she was the weak link in an otherwise stellar cast IMO.

In my area, Mary has the same sound as ferry.

That’s only helpful if we know how you pronounce ferry. If ferry for you sounds similar to fairy then we probably say Mary similarly. Do Mary and merry sound differently to you?

To me, merry berry ferry Keri Teri all have the same vowel sound and it’s a soft e like in err not an ai sound as in air. Of course if err and air sound the same to you, all bets are off.

To me, words and names with a similar vowel sound to air would include dairy fairy wary Mary quite contrary.

It’s not that I don’t hear these words all sounding similarly. It's just that speaking like that would tend towards some stereotypical local accents.

Where I grew up, it would mostly be pronounced like marry (short a sound). Now, having lived in many different areas and lost most of my accent, it's more like the a in dairy. So, Mairy.....

Like “ferry.”

These threads regarding pronunciation could go on and on! Something that’s always been strange to me is when an ”r” is pronounced that isn’t there, such as ”Cuba” is pronounced ”Cuber.” Yet when there is an ”r” it’s not pronounced…”car” becomes ”cah.”

What food said! (Though our regions are quite disparate. So I suspect nothing about regions)

I've also been known to pronounce pen and pin differently. I just dictated that and it caught the difference.

Yup, my 'Mary' rhymes with 'contrary'...but not 'Harry'. I use my my tongue more for the 'a' in 'Mary' and my mouth and tongue are more relaxed in 'Harry'.

Do we need a speech pathologist to explain the different tongue and mouth shapes?

" Do Mary and merry sound differently to you? "

No. The same. Also same as dairy.

" it’s a soft e like in err not an ai sound as in air "

No, in my region for all of these it's the same vowel sound as in air.

" if err and air sound the same to you, all bets are off. "

Err is tricky. Some say it like air, as in the related word error. Others say it close to sounding like ur, the biblical land of Ur. Or, as in curry which has the ur sound as written.

The "air" pronunciation is in the name Keri, which I pronounce as Kairy (dairy, fairy, Harry, Mary, etc)

rob, for me, pen and pin have different sounds.

The slippery lubricant put into engines and changed regularly is not earl. Haha.

I enjoy exploring such differences, hope y'all do too.

I used the word error above, that may have variations too.

To me, it is air er. I've heard some say air ra .

Like ferry.

I pretty much pronounce Mary, merry, and marry all the same way - I guess I'm just lazy, but that's the way I've heard them pronounced where I grew up in Texas. You can watch Youtube videos on this.

I've noticed that people in New York pronounce Larry with a different "a" sound than what I use, and it is not the sound I use in Mary.

wow Mary I pronounce like Mairy rhymes with dairy.

Harry rhymes with Marry and Carry. ( Harry was my father's name).

Growing up I knew girls named Merry and Mary and they did not sound similar.

Ferry is totally different like MERRY

Mary and merry aound the same to me. I think there is a slight inflection difference with the pronunciation of marry or Harry.

Mary and merry sound identical here. I had a friend named Mary Bess who was called Mahr Bess by everyone in a family. I thought they were speaking of someone they knew who was named Morbis.

"such as ”Cuba” is pronounced ”Cuber.”

I just returned from a week in Havana. Maybe it's pronounced "Cuber" in other parts of Cuba, but in Havana I never heard anyone say "Cuber."

Here it's just like Merry (Xmas).

There's a TV cook here called Mary Berry. Her names don't rhyme with each other in my standard British English. They rhyme with fairy ferry.

Maybe it's pronounced "Cuber" in other parts of Cuba, but in Havana I never heard anyone say "Cuber."

No, not in Cuba. My experience from hearing it is more from some New Englanders (such as Boston) here in the US. They add an ”r” to words ending in ”a.” However, if there is an ”r” they omit it. For example, ”park the car” is pronounced ”pahk the cah.” “Pizza” becomes ”pizzer.” President Kennedy used to say ”Cuber,” and his brother (Teddy) referred to Sammy Sosa (baseball player) as ”Sammy Soser.”

In the Australian accent, ”Mary”, ”merry” and ”ferry” all prettty well rhyme, with the vowel being more like the short ”e” in ”echo”. ”Larry”, ”Harry” and ”marry” all have a short ”a” as in ”cat”.

My in-laws always pronounced 'Harry' and 'hairy' differently, but it was something I never accomplished. I say them both the same.

Chloe, here is how that intrusive r works: two words, one after the other. If the first word ends in a vowel sound, and the next word begins with a vowel sound, then some regional accents will insert an r in between.

I have to look up when the r is removed, but I suspect that if a word ends in r, and the next word strarts with a consontant sound, and oerhaps a specific type of consonant sound, the r vanishes.

Thanks, bpath. I’ve looked up the explanation a few times but can never remember. One thing’s for sure, I’ve no idea how it works in Havana!🤷‍♀️

One time i was looking at a friend’s wedding album and admired her hair in the photos. She said thanks, its a herpes.

What? Turns out it was a hair piece. She was from somewhere in Oregon.

I say Mary rhymes with fairy. Mary, merry and marry are all distinctly different.

The adding the R where there is none at the end ( yes like Cuba, soda etc) is also somewhat common, or was, in the NYC area. " afta dinnuh drink some soder".

To me, Mary, merry and marry are all exactly the same.

Just like Elmer..and yep..even Larry! But, this year a 4-year old wished me a

Mehry Christmas...and 4-year old is never wrong!