Beh-ril, burr'uhl, and burl

Mark A. Mandel mamandel at LDC.UPENN.EDU
Mon Jul 24 19:09:46 UTC 2006


If you're just asking about "Beryl", it isn't another "merry, Mary, marry",
insofar as the 3M combo refers to words that are all distinct in some
dialects but fall together in various combinations in others.

Me, I distinguish them all, as well as
 - Beryl , with the same vowel as "merry"
 - barrel, like "marry"
 - Burl
 - Burrell (I think: distinct in my mind from "Burl", but my speech
recognition software isn't treating them as different and on playback I'm
not sure my production is either)

-- Mark
[This text prepared with Dragon NaturallySpeaking.]

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



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