Totally actually YAEPT: Merry, marry, mary.

On Tue, 22 Jul 2003, Joe wrote:

> > On Sat, Jul 19, 2003 at 12:58:25PM -0400, Doug Dee wrote:
> > > How does M-W reflect the 3-way merry/marry/Mary distinction?
> >
> > For "merry", only one pronunciation is listed: /'mEri/.
> > For "marry", two are given: /'m{ri/ and /'mEri/
> > For "Mary", three: /'mEri/, /'m{ri/, and /'mejri/.
>
> For me: [mEri], [m{ri] and [mE:ri].  Vowel length of [E] is phonemic.  For
> instance, I would here [E] as 'eh'(though in my dialect, that's closer to
> [e]), not 'air'[E:].
Oo, oo, I have a good one:
[mer\i]
[m&r\i]
[me:r\i]
[m&:r\i] Maori. Though it can be [m&:u\r\i] as well, which
isn't quite as interesting :)

--
Tristan                  <kesuari@...>

Yesterday I was a dog. Today I'm a dog. Tomorrow I'll probably still
be a dog. Sigh! There's so little hope for advancement.
                -- Snoopy