Say what?

May 28, 2005 5:12 AM

How do you say "aunt"? There was a spirited thread a couple of years ago on the pop/soda/Coke division in our nation, but this survey is on the actual pronunciation of words. Ant? Ahnt? Aint? (My father used to say "bum" for "bomb" and "my-o-naiz" for "mayonnaise," and it drove me nuts. I also wondered why I didn't say it the same way.)
posted by ancientgower (73 comments total)

languagehat in 4 ... 3 ... 2 ...
posted by RavinDave at 5:19 AM on May 28, 2005

Huge Dialect Survey
posted by sdrawkcab at 5:19 AM on May 28, 2005

sdrawkcab, was it the way I pronounced it? :)
posted by ancientgower at 5:24 AM on May 28, 2005

Sorry ancientgower, screwed up the link... whoops. Anyway, the weirdest dialect phrase I have ever heard, with no explanation, was a summer roommate who didn't "do laundry," he "made a wash."

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go make washes. Weird kid.
posted by sdrawkcab at 5:28 AM on May 28, 2005

I live in north eastern Georgia.

I say "ah-nt," probably because my mother is from Massachusetts; she also pronounces it this way. My father says "ant". My grandfather (my father's father), who is from rural South Carolina (just a stone's throw over the Ga-SC border) says "aint". In reference to kin from that area, my father also says "aint" - it's not just a descriptor; it's a part of that person's name.

Sadly, though, most of the people who went by "aint" are of my grandfather's generation or older, and have passed on to their reward. And in general, his family - with so many having passed on - has scattered to the four winds.
posted by Floach at 5:28 AM on May 28, 2005

gaunt flaunt taunt haunt daunt aunt.
posted by Space Coyote at 5:30 AM on May 28, 2005

What do you call the activity of driving around in circles in a car?
posted by Hlewagast at 5:30 AM on May 28, 2005

beat neat heat eat teat great
posted by argybarg at 5:44 AM on May 28, 2005

Most of us learn our dialect from our peers, rather than our parents--which is also why immigrants' children usually speak perfect English even if their parents never learn.
posted by Jeanne at 5:51 AM on May 28, 2005

toes goes hoes woes foes does
posted by argybarg at 5:51 AM on May 28, 2005

I actually use both pronounciations... am I the only one? It's in my 'don't care' zone.
posted by wakko at 5:57 AM on May 28, 2005

maudlin taut caught daunting nautical laugh
posted by argybarg at 5:57 AM on May 28, 2005

"NUKE-u-lar, Marge. It's pronounced NUKE-u-lar."
posted by bwg at 5:59 AM on May 28, 2005

ghoti, anyone?
posted by alumshubby at 6:22 AM on May 28, 2005

I say "ah-nt," probably because my mother is from Massachusetts

Represent!

I actually use both pronounciations... am I the only one? It's in my 'don't care' zone.

My future wife is from the Philadelphia area, I am from Maine and we live just outside Boston. When I am referring to one of my aunts or the concept of an aunt, I say "ahnt." When I am referring to one of her aunts, I say "ant". She does the reverse.

This brings up a more interesting issue, however. One of my girlfriend's aunts is named "Meredith" and called "Merry." To a native speaker of the New England dialect, "Merry" is a homonym of "Mary". To my girlfriend and everyone I've asked from her area, "Merry" is distinct from "Mary" and also distinct from "Murray."

So to a New Englander, there are only two different vowels in the Mary-Murray progression, but there are three to a Philadelphian. Consequently, because my girlfriend doesn't pronounce "Merry" like "Mary", it sounds like she has an "Aunt Murray."
posted by Mayor Curley at 6:31 AM on May 28, 2005

I can't imagine the pronunciation in which "Murray" and "Mary" sound the same. Does it sound like "hurry" or like "hairy"?
posted by argybarg at 6:41 AM on May 28, 2005

Oh, oops...spotted it. But still -- does she rhyme "Merry" with "hurry?"
posted by argybarg at 6:42 AM on May 28, 2005

I grew up in Michigan and I say "ant," followed by that aunt's name, like "ant mary," but my good friend who grew up the next town over says "awntie," just "awntie," with no name following. Her family has roots in the south.
posted by leapingsheep at 6:46 AM on May 28, 2005

I say "ant" but I'm not sure if that's a Pittsburgh thing or a Philly thing - both my parents were from the steel city. I still know people that say "yuns" out that way, I'll never get used to that. My Philly comes out when I say water..."watuh". No point in spell checking any of these posts I guess.
posted by j.p. Hung at 6:46 AM on May 28, 2005

Another vote for "ahnt" here. But then again, I'm not on the map, or that part of the world for the matter.
posted by slf at 6:55 AM on May 28, 2005

An ah-unt is your mother or father's sister. An ant is a small insect.

I actually use both pronounciations

Yes, sometimes these are interchangeable. /rimshot
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 7:03 AM on May 28, 2005

One of my friends pronounces "bury" "burry," where I say "berry" and we drive each other insane.
posted by Foosnark at 7:06 AM on May 28, 2005

My father used to say... "my-o-naiz" for "mayonnaise," and it drove me nuts.

Where y'at, dahlin'? It's my-naiz in New Orleans.
posted by y2karl at 7:13 AM on May 28, 2005

But still -- does she rhyme "Merry" with "hurry?"

She insists that she doesn't, and another friend from Southern Jersey says that she doesn't, but it sure sounds like it to me and the people I grew up with.
posted by Mayor Curley at 7:15 AM on May 28, 2005

What do you call the activity of driving around in circles in a car?

Flipping shitties? Wtf? It's flipping bitches, you weirdo northern peoples.

As in, my ant Mary flipped a bitch in front of CostCo in a tearin' hurry to get home and do her warsh.
posted by melissa may at 7:28 AM on May 28, 2005

Oh, it's whipping shitties. Jesus, that's even more fuckity uppity.
posted by melissa may at 7:30 AM on May 28, 2005

oh, fer fuck's sake, it's doing donuts! And it's pronounced Ant, whether it's your mother's sister, little bugs, or an older female cousin - you only say Awnt to be pretentious and annoy your kids.

whipping shitties?! Who ever?!!

Everybody knows that flipping a bitch is a U-turn.
posted by Space Kitty at 7:50 AM on May 28, 2005

on preview, that sounded unintentionally harsh. I love this stuff!
posted by Space Kitty at 7:53 AM on May 28, 2005

Space Kitty, you are right, there is a distinction between doing donuts and flipping bitches. However, I refuse, I point blank refuse to believe, that whipping a shit and flipping a bitch aren't meant to represent the same thing.

There is nothing whiptistic about doing a donut. Donuts are big fat lazy circles you make as a teen in some parking lot because you don't know how to frigging drive yet. Donuts are donutty. Flipping a bitch also sounds like what it is: short, jerky, antagonistic to other drivers.

Unless the parking lots in the Iron Range are built at some mighty acute angles there is no possible way anyone is whipping any shit in them. And I'll stand by that, in the name of all that is decent and holy and true.
posted by melissa may at 8:14 AM on May 28, 2005

What about those strange people who throw an 'r' into the word Washington?
posted by birdherder at 8:38 AM on May 28, 2005

I'm in weirdo subcategory g). I have ahnts, but I have an Ant Mary. I wonder if this is because my mother's family is from Nova Scotia but she and her siblings had two aunts living in Boston when they were growing up, and somehow dialects got crossed.

One thing they didn't study, which my wife's been mocking me about for several months: the twirly things that hang above babies' cribs - mobiles. I say mo-beel, she says mo-bul. She says she's right, and blames my version on the three years I spent in the American Midwest as a young child. Anyone?
posted by gompa at 8:47 AM on May 28, 2005

I say mo-bile, which I think is the favoured Canadian pronunciation. I could never get used to Americans saying mo-beel.
posted by Turtles all the way down at 8:55 AM on May 28, 2005

Some of us say "Tia" or "Tante". But I forgot this is an american website ...no?
posted by adamvasco at 9:05 AM on May 28, 2005

It's really interesting to see how many terms and phrases are localized to New England.
They left out the great "sauce" or "gravy" debate, though.
posted by Thorzdad at 9:07 AM on May 28, 2005

This "driving a car in circles" question is flawed! Where I'm from, driving in a circle (usually done when it's snowy, in a vacant parking lot) is "doing donuts." However, if you want to do a u-turn, then you "whip a shitty." Obviously two different actions!
posted by mikeh at 9:28 AM on May 28, 2005

It's always been "ahnt" in my family (Rhode Island natives), with the exception of my "ant" from Tennessee.

They left out the great "sauce" or "gravy" debate, though.
As it was explained to me by some Italian coworkers once, it's sauce when it comes out of a jar. Gravy you make yourself. However, I grew up in a big Italian family and we never called any sort of red sauce (tomato, marinara, etc) gravy.

The big debate I remember having in college was the jimmies vs. sprinkles debate. We finally compromised - jimmies were all brown, multicolored ones were sprinkles.
posted by chickygrrl at 9:57 AM on May 28, 2005

You're all wrong.
posted by eatitlive at 10:29 AM on May 28, 2005

I fit the majority of NY respondents, except i usually say "car-ml".

I think Pennslyvania (or is it PA and Ohio?) has the weirdest pronounciations--"warsh" instead of "wash" ??
posted by amberglow at 10:42 AM on May 28, 2005

Aunt rhymes with gaunt. Roof rhymes with hoof. You put letters in an awn-velope. Water comes out of a faucet inside and a spick-et (spigot) outside. I grew up in California but my family is from Mass, so I sometimes pronounce things the New England way. However, my cadence is Southern Californian and I never realized how much till I saw someone from where I grew up on TV with people who spoke in other cadences.

Also my family is Italian and it has always been sauce to us.

The one that drives me nuttiest though is the Southern pronounciation of umbrella. The stress is on the second syllable, dammit!
posted by dame at 10:49 AM on May 28, 2005

I've noticed that Northwesterners have a scrambled notion of up/north versus down/south. That is, here in Seattle people say they'll "go up to Portland" when it's south of here. Other non-natives have noticed this tendency.

I should also note that "aunt," in my family, doesn't even close with a "t" -- it has a glottal stop (linguists correct at will). I never hear anyone do this with "ahnt."

By the way, there is such a thing as gravy -- it's a white sauce made from a roux made with chicken juices and scrapings. I suppose this isn't what people are talking about, though. Do people really call red sauces "gravy?"
posted by argybarg at 11:08 AM on May 28, 2005

Do people really call red sauces "gravy?"
Yes, they do. I have a friend in Philly who absolutely tears me a new one any time I call a red sauce "sauce". It's "gravy" to her, and there is no room for discussion.
Gravy, to me, is something you make with pan drippings...preferably for ladling over mashed potatoes. So, when she talks about having some gravy over her linguine...well...it kind of grosses me out a bit.
posted by Thorzdad at 11:26 AM on May 28, 2005

I've heard most of these before, and some of them drive me loony, too, but the one I had NEVER heard outside of my own family (with parents born in the 30's) is the -- apparently -- old Canadian way to pronounce khaki: "car-key". WTF? Anyone?
posted by dreamsign at 11:28 AM on May 28, 2005

amberglow - you're thinking about Pittsburgh. Over there they "wohrsh" their clothes. The vowel sound is almost closer to a long O than it is to the more standard sound, which I've generally heard as something between "ah" and "aw". I don't _think_ that that pronunciation is common beyond the western Appalachian areas of PA, but I might be wrong. Either way, people in the neighboring areas of Ohio [who pronounce things normally - no one's ever told me I have an 'Ohio accent'] find this very amusing. Oddly enough, Baltimore has a sort of similar accent - they call that nearby city "Wahrshington".

Pittsburgh actually has something close to its own dialect - a couple of links on it.
posted by ubersturm at 11:32 AM on May 28, 2005

I've heard warsh in western KS and OK too. My grandma says it that way. She is not strange, birdherder. She is cute as a bug.

If you think UMbrella is bad, try western KS for CEment and INsurance. And rel-a-tor for the lady in the yellow jacket who sells you a house. Driving around the main street in a giant circle hopelessly looking for someone exciting is draggin' and you don't go to the movies, you go to the show. It's good stuff, Maynerd.
posted by melissa may at 11:44 AM on May 28, 2005

Born in NY, raised for the most part in Virginia. It's always been ant and man-aze.
Funny about the r in Washington. When I was in college, the state comptroller of Maryland, Louis Goldstein at the time, was also on the college's Board of Visitors and Governors. Not only did he add the R, but he completely dropped the last syllable. Not Washington College, but Warshing College.
posted by emelenjr at 12:00 PM on May 28, 2005

I wish they had asked which word in "red light" gets the emphasis. I say it with equal emphasis--red light--but my southern relatives say RED-light. I guess that follows the pattern for "stoplight" but it sounds weird.
posted by goatdog at 12:55 PM on May 28, 2005

What about bathroom/restroom/washroom/etc?
posted by philida at 1:22 PM on May 28, 2005

y2karl, I'm in Georgia, and my father never lived anywhere but Macon and Newnan. That's what made "my-naiz" so weird.

re: UMbrella, how about INsurance? :)
posted by ancientgower at 2:02 PM on May 28, 2005

In the Delta (from Memphis nearly to New Orleans) I think most say it as "ant". Even in New Orleans, where I grew up, it seems like "ant" was the standard. There are number of different groups in New Orleans who have different ways of saying different words (you hear "my-naiz" as well as "mayo-naiz" for instance). The biggest adjustment for me was to remember to call the "neutral ground" a "median" once I moved away. I do know a good number of black people who say "awht-tee".
posted by Carbolic at 2:16 PM on May 28, 2005

I love this! My great-grandmother (20 years dead now, died at age 100) said the following:
* deesh rag (for dishrag or dish cloth)
* warsh rag (for wash rag/cloth)
And best of all:
* Pee-e-bla for the town of Pueblo, Colorado where she lived for over 30 years.
She grew up in what is now Oklahoma, but at that time was called "Indian Territory" (read about the Trail of Tears).
posted by dbmcd at 3:01 PM on May 28, 2005

Ah, but Carbolic, for some people a median is a parkway. Then there's some of us for whom a parkway is the strip of grass between the sidewalk and the curb.
posted by dame at 3:21 PM on May 28, 2005

Neutral ground is what we call the strip of ground that seperates the two sides of a road. I don't think we have a name for the grass between the sidewalk and the curb.
posted by Carbolic at 3:47 PM on May 28, 2005

That's what I mean. The same thing is also called a parkway or an island.
posted by dame at 4:07 PM on May 28, 2005

I have recently been informed that it is "hilarious" that I pronounce it ON-line and not on-LINE.
posted by StopMakingSense at 5:05 PM on May 28, 2005

Baltimore has a sort of similar accent...
Oh, man, Bawlamer is its own little dialectical wonderland. Worsh 'em 'n wrench 'em in hot wooter... gemme a cole race beef sanrich to take wiff me t' hoskull...
posted by Wolfdog at 5:26 PM on May 28, 2005

I grew up outside of Philly and it was not until people in my adopted city of Boston started looking at me funny that I thought there was anything odd about the existence of "red gravy" versus "brown gravy."

Now that I've been away for over a decade, I've acquired that understandable revulsion when my mom approaches my ravioli with a dripping ladle and the question, "More gravy?"
posted by nev at 6:08 PM on May 28, 2005

I grew up in a big Italian family and we never called any sort of red sauce (tomato, marinara, etc) gravy.

That is just wrong. There is nothing more that can be said about it.

How about drawer? New Yorkers pronounce it draw. Cracks me up.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 8:21 PM on May 28, 2005

Another Baltimorism: a terminal "L" is pronounced "W". So "hill" becomes "hiw". Easier said than read.
posted by Quietgal at 8:24 PM on May 28, 2005

I'd not heard the "gravy" thing before. I'm glad to learn of it here. In my view, gravy is strictly a sauce made from meat drippings and flour.

I say "warsh", though I've tried to rid myself of it. It's not clear to me where I learned it. I grew up in eastern New Mexico, which has something very close to a west Texas accent. But I don't (thank God), maybe because my first four years were in Albuquerque. But people here (ABQ) don't say "warsh". My mother says "warsh", and she was born and raised here. Last time I looked at this, it seemed like a mostly midwestern thing.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 8:28 PM on May 28, 2005

I used to work in an office with an Erin and an Aaron. All the native Californians pronounced both names as AIR-in. Drove me nuts.
posted by crythecry at 10:51 PM on May 28, 2005

This used to be hosted at Harvard back in the day...
posted by Galvatron at 11:32 PM on May 28, 2005

Great thread. My Dad and Grandma were from near Pittsburgh, Latrobe (pronounced "Lay-trobe"). They said things like "worsh", "crick", "hizzy", "yoonz", "yinz" and "ahia". A "davenport" was a couch, a stupid person or act was just plain "simple" (one of my favorites), and "pop" was soda. No "dis" and "dats" though, that I recall; that would sound "simple".

I picked up a lot of words from them (like "artheritis") and have had more than a few people ask me if I'm from Pittsburgh. Thanks for the Pitts links, uberstrum; here's another: http://english.cmu.edu/pittsburghspeech/

And, speaking of speaking: while learning to talk, my babysitter was from the Deep South, so I had a southern accent that still pops out sometimes. The next sitter was from New Yawk, a strong accent I held until my teens. Sometimes I sound like a southern New Yawker from Pittsburgh. With a California accent (is there such a thing?). Dialect is big fun.

Oh and by the way - it's "Ant". :)
posted by NorthernSky at 12:48 AM on May 29, 2005

omg, an amazing thread - and one of the few that I've ever only read halfway-through before commenting; But if it's a Poll, I say either, depending on whom I'm talking to "ant" or "auhnt". I also say either "vase" with a long "a", or "vaahse".

My parents are from the north, and I was mostly raised in the south, which, it seems, has formed an almost completely unidentifiable accent for me; people from the north think I'm from the south, and people from the south think I'm from the north. Oh well.
posted by taz at 4:43 AM on May 29, 2005

Treasure and Measure:
Trayzure / Mayzure
or
Trehzure / Mehzure
posted by Feisty at 8:54 AM on May 29, 2005

"aint" - it's not just a descriptor; it's a part of that person's name.

It was that way in Middle Georgia too. And ghosts were haints. It was all a bit like Cecil Sharp's North Carolina Elizabethan.

But nobody that's above ground says that anymore.
posted by gwyon at 9:47 AM on May 29, 2005

Native to SoCal:

Definitely ant - bugs and relatives.

What do you call the activity of driving around in circles in a car?
Doughnuts.

Everybody knows that flipping a bitch is a U-turn.
Nope, that's whipping a bitch.

One of my friends pronounces "bury" "burry," where I say "berry" and we drive each other insane.
Both my mum and I pronounce it "burry", none of the rest of the family do. Weird, eh? (Mum's from Arizona.)

I used to work in an office with an Erin and an Aaron. All the native Californians pronounced both names as AIR-in.
Well, of course we do. That's how they're pronounced.

Gravy usually has meat parts and/or drippings and is NOT red. Sauce covers almost everything else.

Canadian pronounciation can be ... odd. Mo-bile instead of Mobeel (WRT the city). Where Americans will use "ah", for instance - Mazda or pasta or drama, Canucks use "aaa" like sheep. Oh, and they don't bathe. They bath. They go to the washroom, not restroom.
posted by deborah at 11:37 AM on May 29, 2005

"Mazda or pasta or drama, Canucks use 'aaa' like sheep."

That used to drive me nuts. It's more people from eastern Canada than western, though. I noticed it in Toronto but not in Vancouver.

Also, for some reason, I converted to "have a shower" from "take a shower" because of my Canadian ex-wife. I've been ten years divorced and am around no one who uses that expression, but I still do.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 1:21 PM on May 29, 2005

Deborah-- I'm working on the Canadians, one at a time. Its "pah-stah" and "drah-muh", people-- the former is a cold, hard fact (or warm and al-dente, actually); the latter is simply an accepted truth. Fine, keep the "zed", but the vestigial pronunciations come off as a tad affected (or worse, backwoods). In return, my fellow countrypeople (now that I've repatriated) are working on my pronunciation of Canada (apparently, I say "Kyan-uh-duh" rather than "Cann-uh-duh").
posted by mireille at 3:01 PM on May 29, 2005

mireille, you can keep the Cyan-uh-duh, if I can get people to stop imagining a second "r" in sherbet, pronounce the "p" in pumpkin, and realize that a raZZberry is what you blow at someone you're teasing while a raSPberry is something you eat.
posted by dreamsign at 4:11 PM on May 29, 2005

A little sad to see that for so many of these words and phrases, there seems to be one that is the clear "winner." I spent my childhood in Mississippi with the older folks saying "aint" and the younger folks saying "ant," and I haven't heard anyone say "aint" for years. Southerners seem to be working hard to shed their accents, and television and advertising seem to be dragging the whole country towards a standardized American dialect. I'm wondering how the results to this survey would've been different fifty years ago.
posted by CrunchyGods at 6:50 PM on May 29, 2005

I was born in Pittsburgh and moved to Oregon in junior high. I think that I've always used both pronunciations of aunt and it's based more on specific people and situations than anything else. What I remember noticing most in making the move were the differences in pronunciation of words such as: route, hoof, roof, creek and no one knew why I called frying pans 'skillets' or what on earth a 'commode' was.

Though I fell out of the habit of using 'howscome' and 'yinz', they're still endearing to me and when I talk to someone from back there, I pick them up again with ease. I've been told that my conversational use of "yeah, but" & "yeah, but no" (both said fast and as one word) are Pittsburgh derivatives, but I've yet to track that down. However, never once have I converted to the use of 'Eye-talian', 'expresso' or 'liberry' or as argybarg pointed out, the bizarre up/down North/South confusion.

Dame & carbolic: in Seattle that space between the curb and the sidewalk is called a 'planting strip' and parking there can garner a hefty fine, regardless of the presence or absence of anything planted or growing. Found that one out the expensive way.

An ongoing and good natured ribbing I have with a close friend from Boston revolves around my lack of familiarity with the use of the term 'gravy' for red sauce and her's of a recipe known as shit on a shingle. While I'm sure we liked it more because it gave us a chance to curse without getting in trouble, it was definitely a staple dish.

Dialects and colloquialisms, good fun!
posted by Frisbee Girl at 1:16 AM on May 30, 2005

My wife and I pronounce it "ant" but my 8 year old has decided she likes "ahnt." I think many of her friends use this pronunciation. So it's not just handed down from parent to child.

Sounds too pretentious to me.
posted by Taken Outtacontext at 5:08 AM on May 30, 2005

Flippin a bitch? Whippin a shitty?
I swear I have never heard anything but "Shittin out a ricky."
posted by Divine_Wino at 9:09 AM on May 31, 2005