Carrie rhymes with marry (as does Harry). Kerry rhymes with merry. Hairy comes very close to rhyming with Mary. Mary, merry, and marry are all pronounced differently. (In my New Yorkish accent, anyway.)
Mary has the same sound as "air." Merry has the same vowel as "egg." Marry has the same vowel as "cat." (Tried to think of words without r or n next to the vowel, since those tend to change the vowels around in some accents, but now that I think about it, I've heard people pronounce egg as "aig," so I'm not sure I'm not confusiing the issue more.)
Jess PMoon, that book made ALA's top ten most challenged of 2003 list.
Colour me unsurprised.
Fred Pete, did you say RAY-seen or ruh-SEEN for the city of Racine?
Ruh-SEEN. Right next to Kuh-NO-shuh.
Weirdest moment I ever had on that score was during high school, working at the Janesville (JANE'S-vil) McD's, waiting on someone who told me how nice JAN-es-vil was.
Marezeedoatsanddozeeetoatsandlittlelambseedivey. Kiddleeiveytoowooodenchew?
Ma/e/r/rr/ys are all the same to me. Pin and pen are different.
I have sat here saying merry-mary-marry, and I can't hear a lick of difference. I have a Chicago accent altered by 35 years in the South, which pretty much means that I sound like a national newscaster who uses Southern idiom.
Mary has the same sound as "air." Merry has the same vowel as "egg." Marry has the same vowel as "cat."
So, they're theoretically pronounced M-air-ee (Mary), M-eh-ree (Merry), and M-aah-ree (Marry)?
My step-mother went to elementary school in Ithaca NY, then junior high in Atlanta GA. When she started high school in Sacramento CA she was told she had a "speech defect" and sent to remedial English. Made her so mad she is now a Ph.D. in linguistics.
So, they're theoretically pronounced M-air-ee (Mary), M-eh-ree (Merry), and M-aah-ree (Marry)?
Yes.
One of my cousins lived in Western Massachusetts until he was 6, and then his family moved to California. His school put him into speech therapy because they thought he couldn't pronounce the letter R.
So, they're theoretically pronounced M-air-ee (Mary), M-eh-ree (Merry), and M-aah-ree (Marry)?
I can make the distinction if I really, really try, but it's more trouble than it's worth.
I had a camp counselor once named Merry, and we used to spend hours sitting around the cabin going "Mary....Merry....Mary....Merry...Mary..." to see if anyone could hear the difference. What we found out was that we all thought we were pronouncing them differently, but in reality, nobody else could hear it.