Do you pronounce Merry and Mary the same?

[SpringIsSpringing23]

The main character in a book I'm reading is called Merry. She has to introduce herself as "Merry as in Merry Christmas, not the Virgin Mary" for other people to spell it right.

In my accent they are pronounced differently!

If Merry and Mary are pronounced the same then does Mary Berry's name rhyme? Are ferry and fairy the same? Very and vary?

This

Dh has a very strong Belfast accent, but pronounced them differently when i tested him. But we reckon Mary and Gerry from Derry would rhyme in a northwestern accent.
Mils eldest daughter, from Co.Down, is more of a Meery.

For those who are insisting giraffe and scarf rhyme please remember that in rhotic accents we pronounce our 'r's in the correct place rather than them being a modifier that extends the vowel sound as it is in southern England. In addition we don't stick them in at random (e.g. the dreadful draw-ring). So we don't get confusion between e.g. father and farther that exists in the non-rhotic accents.

Worst example I ever saw was a child's jigsaw with rhyming images e.g. ants in pants, frog on a log etc. But we were completely stumped by an image of two gentlemen wearing hats and nightclothes. Turns out it was the completely not rhyming at all 'farmers in pyjamas' 🙄.

As the character says in the book. Not the same

Mostly yes.

But to me pair, pare, Per, peer, pear are all pronounced the same too. Which apparently is very wrong. So what do I know?

What’s the book please?

I pronounce them differently.Merry rhymes with ferry and Mary rhymes with fairy
In my accent giraffe absolutely does not rhyme with scarf.

Mary to me is meer-y and leery

Merry is "merry" to rhyme with airy, fairy, dairy

My accent never matches up with English. I'm from NI but we have lots of Mary said Meeeeeerys here.

In NI fairy and ferry sound the same

I've been listening to an audiobook of Anne of Green Gables and the American / Canadian narrator pronounces the surname of Anne's friend Diana as Berry when her name is Barry. I had to go back to the written book and check, it was annoying me so much.

What a stuck up post. What makes your accent more 'correct' than any other 😂

mary is like mare-ee (mare as in nightmare)

merry is shorter a bit like meh-rry

I have a Scottish accent and would pronounce these completely differently.

Meh-ry

vs

May-ry

I agree with pp that authors of rhyming books in particular should be more aware of accents and rhotic vs non-rhotic differences. Giraffe and scarf don't rhyme for most people in NI or Scotland and that's just in the UK.

Surely your book is American, where those words sound the same. Obviously they don’t sound the same with UK pronunciation. Not sure why this wasn’t obvious to you and you had to start a thread about it!

No.

I can’t believe I spent my entire time in the shower this morning trying to get scarf to rhyme with giraffe.

Then I realised it’s not really scarf, it’s GIRAFFE that’s the problem.

I pronounce the A in Giraffe the same way I pronounce the A in Cat, Pan, Path or Laugh.

If I pronounced A like the Tweenies say Dance or Chance, then giraffe and scarf are much more similar.

Then swap the AR of Scarf from rhotic to non rhotic and they rhyme.

You have the most ironic user name EVER!

I pronounce Mary and Merry differently from each other but if I say Mary Berry it comes out much quicker and the two words sound a lot more alike.

For me it is not so much stuck up as very confused. Why does your accent add an R that isn’t in the word?

I read something recently about Sean Bean and how he needs to make a choice. He can either be Seen Been or Shawn Bawn but not Shawn Been.

It made me laugh. Words and accents are funny.

Sean (or more properly Seán) is a different language, that's the issue there.

If you've never heard of anyone being called Merry (I haven't) you could assume the person is called Mary?

I know people will try and explain the intrusive r to you as a feature of a different accent to yours.

However, I'm going to be honest with you: we do it specifically to annoy you.

wary mary

merry terry