Monday, January 7, 2008

January 7, 2008 - Marraige, etc. (for Marriage)

One way to tell what kind of an accent you have is to see whether you pronounce any or all of these words the same way: Mary, marry, and merry. (Click here to take an online quiz and find out.) Marraige (with 19 occurrences in OhioLINK) and Marrige* (with 18) are "high probability" typos on the Ballard list, followed by the lesser variants Marrage* and Marrriage* (four apiece) and Maraige* (one). Mery plus Christmas serves up eight records as well, but a few of these seem to be proper Medieval or early English spellings. (Dedicated to my merry niece Mary, who is not yet of marriageable age, has an upstate New York accent, and loves trolls.)

Carol Reid

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