Boiseans pronounce it boy-see, but everyone else pronounces it boy-zee. It makes it easy to tell who is from there
this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2025
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I live in the U.S., and my state capitol is spelled Pierre, but pronounced "peer".
I haven't lived there in a while and I don't pronounce it that way anymore, but where I grew up, water is universally pronounced "wooder".
When I was in school, I had a teacher who insisted on pronouncing the word "across" as "acrosst".
I lived in Louisville, KY briefly, and the official pronunciation is apparently “Luuhwuuhh”. You will be mocked if you get it wrong.
Not "loovul"? I need to brush up.
My kid got a worksheet on the long A sound. She got through most of them but was stumped on the "lobster". I looked at it - Lobster, Crawfish, neither of those have a long A sound, what the heck?
Hours later it occurs to me.
OH, Craaay-fish? Who in the world calls them that? Nobody here. Where was this printed?
Do the British and Irish dialect quiz. It's really interesting to find out what words you use and how you pronounce them pinpoint where you grew up and where your family is from. I've got a mixture of London, Midlands and Devon and it's bang on!
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/02/15/upshot/british-irish-dialect-quiz.html
Paywall
Wash wahsh warsh Bag bahg beyg Oil oyel ohl
Desk draw
It's "Zed" not "Zee"
Fellow member of the zed crowd!! When someone says "zee" to mean zed it often sounds like they're saying the letter c lol
Everyone knows the song goes "ex, why, zed. Now I know my ABCs, next time won't you sing with med"
The song was written by an American so understandable that they'd do it with the wrong pronunciation.
wait that's supposed to rhyme with the Z? It rhymes with the 'me' so it seems like it doesn't need to rhyme with the Z
I said I know my ABCs, I didn't say I know how to structure children's songs. Next you're going to expect me to be able to work AND be sober at the same time, SHEESH!
Boston area doesn't use "r".
The famous: "Can't pahk(park) your cah(car) in Havid(Harvard) Yad(yard)".
Elemen-tary or documen-tary
The tary pronounced like Terry. Apparently this is unusual outside of this region.
What region? I'm pretty sure that's standard.
Central New York. I've been called out on it many times by people from other places.
Both the US and UK pronunciations on this site are different from how we say it here. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/pronunciation/english/elementary
So .... how else would you say it ?
"Militree"
El a men tree
Doc you men tree
I also hear "el a men her ee" a lot.
I've noticed some people say "document-tree" now that I think about it.
Where I live it's more like as you described but not quite "terrrry" but "Tuh-ree" ?
Crayon: crown
Caramel: CAR-mul
Pecan: peh-CAWN
Got any cricks nearby?
Ah yes, the coloring company, crow-la
So you pronounce crayon like a kings hat/ tooth repair?
Yes. It's not very common and seems to occur where regional differences merge.
True, I'm just used to hearing either Cray-on or Cran (like cranberries)
Also I know I struggle with colors sometimes... But I don't see green or yellow on that map, just red and blue... Is that just me haha
Green is in the northwest corner of Wisconsin.
Yellow is honestly a terrible color choice for this map, because the pronunciation isn't truly regional. I think it's clustered along the edges of a few different red areas, mostly on the east coast and some Southern areas.
I actually think the author's note about it being a merging of pronunciation makes sense, because I was raised in a transitional Southern dialect but my parents both have an east Midland dialect
North-East Netherlands. Besides the dialect, every sentence is ended with the word "ja", which means yes/yeah. It's like saying "It rains, yeah", or "Let's take a look, yeah". It's also drawn long, like jaaaa. Also, a lot of nouns are ended with "gie" in the dialect, making it a diminutive.
Melbourne.
Now most will read that and go Mel bourn. But in Australia we say Mel Bin.
A really easy way to tell if someone isn't an Aussie while there.
Is there a similar "tell" with how people pronounce Darwin?
Old gen x Australian here, and pretty much everybody I know pronounces it Mel burn.
To pass as local I say the Mel part clearly and mumble bu or bun at random, depending on the mood. So MELBu
But the real test is all the mumbling variations of Straya, AUSTRAia, etc
I pronounced it like "Mel-born" until an Australian person corrected me lol. it's like Gloucestershire but in Australia!
Gloss-ter-sher?
yup like gloss ter sheer
As I live in the south I hear my "how are you all doing" morphing into "howya'lldoin" and there's nothing I can do to stop it
How do you pronounce oil?
I can never tell if my partner says gem or Jim. She had a moment the other day listening to her dad and looked at me and said holy shit this is what I sound like to you. She hadnt seen him in a bit
Shades of Jeff Foxworthy and his southern words.
Southern Baden Württemberg: everything is followed by 'li'.
Please, we must have some examples of this.
No...li
In the Maritimes, Dalhousie (the university) is pronounced: "dal-HOW-zee".
In Ottawa, Dalhousie (the street) is pronounced: "dal-HOOOOOO-ze".
I don't know why, but I find the Ottawa pronunciation really annoying.
I’m newish to the maritimes. For a good while when we got here I thought it was supposed to be like “dollhouse” >.>
We pronounce d and t exactly the same way, so both sound like d to other people, but ofc we know from context which one is meant, always, therefore to us they aren't the same at all! :)
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