Missing syllables

[firstfrost]

So, a while ago, chenoameg mentioned that many people pronounce her name wrong, as "May-gun" instead of, um, "Mehg-un". And I said ooh, I bet I do that wrong.

It's been rattling around in my head since then, and it keeps bothering me. I can't hear the difference. I can barely even think the difference, without concentrating hard. The difference between "eg" and "aig" is a phonetic blind spot for me. Why is this?

So, I thought about it some more. I can distinguish between "et" and "ait". "Met" and "mate" are different words. Okay, maybe it's because the "ai" vowel combination ends with the back of the tongue closer to the top of the mouth, and a "g" sound closes there. But no, I can tell the difference between "ek" and "aik", and the K does the same thing the G does. "Mech" and "make" are different.

But I can't tell the difference between - um. Hmm. I can't think of any pairs of words for my syllables. "Vague" and "veg", but no, because "veg" is pronounced "vehj", though maybe not in England? "egg" and "leg" and "peg" and "Meg" and "beg" don't have "aig" equivalents. Is that it? When I was little, I never learned any words that made me have to tell those two sounds apart, and now I can't? That's how it's supposed to work.

But it's driving me crazy. I walk down the street muttering "tweg... twaig... tweg... twaig... to myself" and I'm probably getting funny looks. Is it just me? Can everyone else hear those two syllables clearly? (And if you can, do you know any matching pairs of words?)

Comments

[navrins]

I hear the difference clearly when it is actually pronounced, but it's common enough that it isn't that I have not known how chenoameg prefers her name pronouced. I will attempt to remember she actually prefers Mehg-un; my default pronunciation is May-g'n.

I also hear the differences between Mary/merry/marry, and Aaron/Erin, for what it's worth. There's another pair like that too, but I'm not thinking of it. I don't think there is any distinction of that sort made by Americans that I can't hear, though the local Croatian can certainly pronounce sounds he claims are distinct that I cannot distinguish.

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

Ah, I also cannot hear Mary/merry/marry, and Aaron/Erin. The former, I even now recall as a canonical example. I feel better somehow. :)

[desireearmfeldt]

But that may be because many people don't actually *pronounce* them differently. ;)

[cfox.livejournal.com]

Kerry vs. Carrie tripped me up once (everybody thought I was crazy when the birthday cake came out and I looked around and said, "but who's Carrie?") Fewer a/e sounds is normal for Americans.

I sidetracked a game of zephyr-charades by not realising that my r's are mostly missing; "tuba" and "tuber" are homophones to me.

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

How does one play zephyr-charades?

Not that I can't think of ways to do so, but if tuba/tuber are being confused, they must not be being typed?

[cfox.livejournal.com]

ascii art...
You're allowed words for "sounds like" and "more", and not much else.

Class charades, which we even set up to log at one point. It was one of the ways we passed the time on y2k-eve.

[cfox.livejournal.com]

It wasn't tuba/tuber, but a rhyme that I now can't remember. I launched into a "sounds like" and started drawing rhymes that didn't rhyme at all to anyone else.

We also allowed stuff like "ten words, word two:" and then a drawing.

[chenoameg.livejournal.com]

"Kerry vs. Carrie tripped me up once"

I have that trouble with Aaron/Erin.

[mijven.livejournal.com]

The idea that Marry and Mary are to be pronounced differently still blows me away. But then I don't converse well in English anyway. (I had several amusing moments last night, discussing recent books/movies with some of my mom friends. We were all struggling with our nouns as we tried to identify/describe Tom Cruise movies, and it was so wonderful to realize that I was not alone in my verbal incompetence!)

[desireearmfeldt]

Mehg and Maig sound very different to me. (And my default pronounciation of the name is Meh-gun.)

I can't offhand think of a word or syllable pair such as the one you seek.

And re navrins's comment about merry/marry/Mary, I tend to pronounce the latter two similarly but differently from the first one; I can if I try pronounce them all distinctly, but it takes conscious effort; I can (I presume) hear the difference when someone who differentiates all three pronounces them.

[ilhander.livejournal.com]

Yes, merry/marry/Mary are MEHR-ee, MAHR-ee, MAI-ree when I say them.

(Will you marry merry Mary?)

So I think I differentiate all three (but for me merry is closer to Mary than marry), and I can hear all three when spoken by someone who differentiates them. Maybe.

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

I think the answer is that in English this is a distinction of phoneme (you know that "egg" and "vague" do not exactly rhyme), but not of morpheme (I can't think of any pairs where this distinguishes the meaning).

However, there certainly are American dialects -- the South, parts of the Midwest -- where the distinction disappears and "egg" and "vague" DO rhyme.

[twe.livejournal.com]

Really? People treat the syllable break as Me-gan and not Meg-an? Hunh. I certainly think I'm say Mehg-un. :)

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

I don't think people get the syllables wrong; I just thought "may-gun" was easier to describe how it sounded than "mayg-un" because "mayg" doesn't look like a word at all. :)

[twe.livejournal.com]

Ah, Meagan vs. Megan?

[pekmez.livejournal.com]

I say "Mehg-un" (for chenoameg and by default for the name),
but if I were chenoameg I would be pleased with the phrase "May-Gun" being applied to me even if it's not pronounced right, because it involves Guns! and the month of May!

who me, silly and ridiculous?

(What I actually struggle with is adding the -an and the -ert to the end of names that I seem to have first learned in the short form.)

[shumashi.livejournal.com]

I think I say "Mehg-an," not "Mehg-un."

Michigan accents have very broad "ai" sounds, so it's easy for me to hear the difference.

[twe.livejournal.com]

See, now that's the place I'd expect people to be unsure of the pronunciation - the second syllable.

[chenoameg.livejournal.com]

I don't care at all about the second syllable.
And anyway, you I think you usually call me Meg.

[shumashi.livejournal.com]

And anyway, you I think you usually call me Meg.

You're right, I do. :)

[desireearmfeldt]

...which ought to force everyone to the Mehg-un pronounciation of your full name. 'Cause surely no one calls you Maig. :)

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

But I do. :) (Though I guess not in a way that bothers Meg.)

That is, I say "Meg" as rhymes with "egg", but for me both of those words have a vowel sound that's closer to "paid" than "peck".

After much experimentation, I realize that I *can* say merry and marry in a way that don't sound the same, I just don't normally pronounce "marry" differently. I *cannot* pronounce "peg" in a way that sounds like "peck" without seriously tricking myself, like saying "peckpeckpeckpeckpeckpegpeckpeck" fast.

[twe.livejournal.com]

G & K sounds are essentially the same, but G is voiced and K is unvoiced, as I discovered studying Russian. (Similarly D & T, I believe.)

[remcat.livejournal.com]

<<"egg" and "leg" and "peg" and "Meg" and "beg" don't have "aig" equivalents. >>


To me, "Egg" and "leg" *ARE* "aig" words :)

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

Ooh. So "leg" doesn't rhyme with "beg" for you, but it does rhyme with "egg" (and "vague")?

[remcat.livejournal.com]

Yes, exactly.

[desireearmfeldt]

c.f. the "dwog and frahg" dichotomy of one of my ex-housemates.

And we won't bring up shumashi's Midwestern vague-rhymes-with-bag. ;)

[remcat.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, I remember my midwest accent! Roof sounds like ruff, and root like rut.

For the record

[chenoameg.livejournal.com]

The second syllable of my name is a schwa; I don't really think about how people pronounce it. I'm from Boston, we swallow second syllables; I would probably write out the pronounciation of my name as Megg'n

You all say my name just fine (by which I mean I've never noticed anyone who's responded to this thread by this time to say my name in the way I think of as wrong).

My strategy is to tell people who mispronounce my name shortly after we're introduced and if they can't hear the difference I tell them it rhymes with egg, and if they still can't make it sound right I give up. There's only one person I talk with routinely who says my name in the way I don't like (Lisa) and she really can't hear the difference, and in her dialect it does rhyme with egg, so I deal. I think firstfrost asked me about the Meg/Megan preference and I expounded on the whole pronounciation thing.

I can hear all of the differences in "Merry Mary will you marry me" but I'm not good at saying them.

[intuition-ist.livejournal.com]

it seems to me that the difference you're noticing is possibly in a voiced vs. unvoiced vowel in the final syllable of Megan's name, and where the syllables break. Final word syllables that start with a vowel tend to be less voiced: "May-gun" vs "Mehg-'n"

i also sometimes have trouble recognizing the mary/merry/marry set, though for me the first two sound much more alike than the third.

Aaron/Erin are very distinct when i pronounce them, but i sometimes have difficulty recognizing the difference when *other* people are doing the talking.

and for the longest time, "pen" and "pin" were indistinguishable, either spoken or heard.

(but i'm not from 'round here...)

[gmpe.livejournal.com]

May I ask where you are from? I only heard about the pen/pin thing at work this week and had never stubbled across it before. The person who was having trouble grew up near Kentucky, but suggested the challenge was something you ran into more as you went south.

[chenoameg.livejournal.com]

The thing I was originally talking about to firstfrost is the difference between
mAYgun and mEHgun.

In the second pronunciation mEHg rhymes with egg.
In the first pronounciation the vowel sound in mAYg rhymes with hay or way.

I don't think how long people hold the second syllable affects the vowel they choose for the first syllable.

Hey, remcat's sons now call me something like Nagen. We have no idea how that started.

[twe.livejournal.com]

Certainly, I have heard a lot of people pronounce "pen" & "pin" the same way.

[kirisutogomen.livejournal.com]

This is why it's important to have parents from different places. Ideally from entirely different language families, but heck, just my parents' different dialects of English seem to have expanded my phoneme recognition.

[twe.livejournal.com]

This all reminds me of the "Yankee or Dixie?" quiz (http://www.angelfire.com/ak2/intelligencerreport/yankee_dixie_quiz.html) that was going around a couple years ago. The most interesting part about that was the way it identified the regions of the country the word choices/pronunciations were from. (My parents being both from the Great Lakes area, I am a mismash of that and the DC area. :)

[jdbakermn.livejournal.com]

Beg and Bag are pretty close to the same word for me. Unless I concentrate and exaggerate my pronunciation of Bag (or Vague).

It also reminds me of when I was taking a French class. I'd say "uh" (un) and the teach would look at me with exasperation and say "No, it's pronounced "uh". I couldn't hear the difference.

Anyway, years later heard a story on NPR (http://www.kuow.org/defaultProgram.asp?ID=4372). It turns out that there are over 4000-6000 different sounds that languages contain. But as you grow up (starting at about 6 months), you're down to distinguishing about 40-60 sounds that make up your native language (40-45 for English). That's why they tell you to teach your kids that second language from birth - it helps them keep more than the 60 distinguishable sounds. I'd guess that across the US there are a handful of those sounds that are present in some places and not in others.

I think it's the same reason that native Japanese speakers have a hard time with English "r" and "l" sounds - there aren't 2 corresponding sounds in Japanese and the native speakers can't hear the difference any more - their brains have learned to ignore the sounds that don't matter to them.

BTW, are these 'sounds' that I'm talking about called Allophones?

[dcltdw]

I can mentally hear the difference, but I have trouble generating the difference, I suspect. Or, at least, that was the case when I was taking chamber chorus and trying all the different open/closed vowel sounds down.

One game I sometimes play when I'm around my in-laws is trying to distinguish phonemes. But I totally cannot tell where the syllables are in Mandorin. At least if I were reading, say, German, I could say "ok, that's a word... and that's a word. And another word." But I can't hear the spaces.