Mary, merry, marry

I grew up in Nebraska and as near as I can tell, I pronounce Mary, merry, and
marry identically. In fact, they rhyme with Perry, perry, ferry, fairy, airy,
Larry, Harry, hairy, Keri, Kerrey, Kerry, carry, berry, and very. I'm
inconsistent in the case of bury, sometimes using a darker vowel this word and
sometimes rhyming it with the above. However, I spent some time in New England
in the 50's and people there did distinguish Mary, merry and marry. They also
tended to rhotacise final syllables in a -- so I that a thought a friend's
sister's name was Normer rather than Norma. Forest was pronounced like fAHrest--
my general impression was that the local dialect had too many vowels for its own
good.

--John

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