Before we get off this topic, can someone clear up if it's pronounced Buff-is-ta or Buff-ees-ta?

The latter. Like Sandanista.

Of course, I don't even know what kind of accent I have anymore. I certainly don't sound like a local native, but I don't think I sound Bama or Philly either.

Philly/PA with a hint of the South, to my ear. You've got a slightly softened version of the accent that my PA friends/roomies of old had (I assume they still have them, but college was an age ago.)

I think I pronounce milk melk. Unless it's a verb. Then it's milk.

John, that reading sounds like it was great. I have The Envy.

My grandmother who was raised in Misourri, pronounces it Mi-zur-uh. I pronounce is differently depending on where I am.

The joys of growing up in Texas but not with Texan parents and then moving to NYC is the tendancy to mark my speech by whom I am around. Recently I have been encourgaed by a few people to redevelop the Texan qualities of my speech.

Mary is a long A, marry is a short A, and merry is a short E. (New Yorker.) I was also startled to find out from an author's note that one of my friends pronounced Carrie to rhyme with "hairy."

The mispronounced words discussion has confused me so thoroughly that I am now convinced I have never pronounced a single word of English correctly. (This casts some doubt on the Mary/marry/merry discussion above.) I now feel too self-conscious to speak, and plan to spend the rest of my life passing notes or writing on a small whiteboard I will hang around my neck, a la Willow and Buffy in "Hush," since at least I know how to spell.

I was also startled to find out from an author's note that one of my friends pronounced Carrie to rhyme with "hairy."

::blink::

there's another way to say it?

Fred Pete! Mukwonago! Sorry. So another fellow Wisconsinite and got excited. And you can't forget Oconomowoc.

My hometown is Wausau, and it got a mention in the Liberace TV bio-movie some years back. They mispronounced it to sound like "Warsaw." It's WAH-sah.

Fred Pete, did you say RAY-seen or ruh-SEEN for the city of Racine? I grew up saying it ruh-SEEN and it always threw me when I heard other Wisconsin folks saying it the other way.

I've always pronounced Carrie the way I would if it began with a lower case c and ended in a y. Carry. Carrie.

I've always pronounced Carrie the way I would if it began with a lower case c and ended in a y. Carry. Carrie.

Which rhymes with hairy, drat it.