Americans - how accurate is this (about language)

[Spot's Meow]

For me, Mary, marry, merry, Barry, berry, bury, tarry, Terry, and Teri all rhyme.

This is my experience as well (except that I would guess tarry rhymes with starry, though I can't remember ever hearing someone say tarry). Even in listening to your video, MissChicken, I can sort of detect a different between how merry and marry were spoken, but the way that she said merry and Mary sounded the same to me.

I have a friend from Hawaii who not only pronounces "bot" and "bought" the same, but he can't even hear the difference when people who pronounce them differently say them. Maybe it's the same with all the merry and Mary for people raised speaking certain dialects.

Okay now I feel like even more of a dunce, as I pronounce "bot" and "bought" the same way as well.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Yes, this is very accurate. Hell, California English is pretty much becoming its own thing now. I love the highway/freeway one. Here in southern California, a highway is just a large main street with intersections and traffic lights and whatnot. A freeway is vastly different.

Heh, a native Californian sent me this today because of some of the things I say differently. It's difficult for me to say how accurate it is even for me personally because of the gradient around Chicago.

Also there is not a map to explain the phenomenon known as "hella" that is slowly making its way into my brain.

I've lived in Northern California for most of my life, but never heard "hella" until moving to the Sierra foothills.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

What about the words terry and tarry?

For me, Mary, marry, merry, Barry, berry, bury, tarry, Terry, and Teri all rhyme.

This is my experience as well (except that I would guess tarry rhymes with starry, though I can't remember ever hearing someone say tarry). Even in listening to your video, MissChicken, I can sort of detect a different between how merry and marry were spoken, but the way that she said merry and Mary sounded the same to me.

D'oh. "Tarry" is really two different words.

When it means to linger, it rhymes with Teri, for me.

When it means covered with tar, it rhymes with starry, for me.

 

[TorontoTrekker]

Mom says "sizzuhs" (something like that) for "scissors," and some weird "kw" sound at the start of "coffee" so that it sounds kinda like "quaff-ee." Does that make sense?

I used to work with a woman who is originally from the Bronx - her accent is very similar to your description of your mother's. I occasionally like to tease her by saying, "Aw, look at the poor dog with a thorn in its sore paw, sitting in a four-door car" in her accent.

Going through the maps:

1. Care-a-mel.
2. "e" as in "set."
3. "Bo-wie", like the singer.
4. I guess I pronounce it "cray-ahn," though by this person's criteria, I pronounce it to rhyme with "dawn." Maybe I'm pronouncing "dawn" incorrectly?
5. Loy-er.
6. Cole slaw. I've never heard it just called "slaw."
7. "You," unless I'm in Atlanta, where I mysteriously start texting friends and saying, "Where y'all at?" (I'm not sure how I picked that up. My ex-bf, who was born and raised in Tennessee and lives in Atlanta, doesn't even say "y'all.")
8. May-uh-naze.
9. Pa-JAM-as.
10. Pee-KHAN.
11. Pop.
12. Crayfish.
13. Roundabout.
14. Sir-up.
15. Sub.
16. Water fountain.
17. Running shoes. This may be a Canadian thing, as it didn't even make his map.
18. Highway, though if there's a different word in the name of the road, I would use that instead. For example, we have such a road here that's called the Gardiner Expressway. But even the Macdonald-Cartier Freeway, I call a highway - then again, I don't know anyone who calls it the Macdonald-Cartier anything. It's just "the 401."
19. Sunshower - though I've never seen it written as one word. I'd always assumed it was "sun-shower." (And there's somewhere where it's called "the devil is beating his wife?" Really? I've never heard that one.)
20. Toronto, of course. The Centre of the Universe.
21. I've never heard of a drive-through liquor store - but here, liquor is only sold in government-run stores (though there are a small number of specialty wine stores).
22. All of the following rhyme: airy, berry, Barry, carry, dairy, fairy, ferry, Gary, Harry, Jerry, Larry, merry, marry, Mary, Perry, tarry, terry, very.

 

[cooleddie74]

These maps seem pretty accurate. I grew up in this part of Virginia calling crawfish "crawdads" and it's a name I continue to use to this day. "Crawdad" appears to occur more frequently over in Kentucky and West Virginia, but they're close enough to my part of this state to help explain why it was so common to hear when I was a kid.

Those maps were a lot of fun and very informative to read.

Now I want some crawdads.

 

[Spot's Meow]

We actually used to call them crawdaddies, but maybe that was just because I thought it sounded cuter.

 

[Owain Taggart]

7. "You," unless I'm in Atlanta, where I mysteriously start texting friends and saying, "Where y'all at?" (I'm not sure how I picked that up. My ex-bf, who was born and raised in Tennessee and lives in Atlanta, doesn't even say "y'all.")

And then there's Newfoundland where people say "What are ya at?" and where the meaning doesn't match the words, as it can mean a bunch of things, but most commonly, "How ya doing?" How it got to that point, I'm not sure, but it's an interesting anomaly.