Mary dear, make me Mary, say you'll Mary me.

Pronounce them the same way, that is.

Well, Freeman, my good man, "most" doesn't mean the same thing as "all" and in your first post you threw us all into the same category, thus my criticism is valid.

Actually, he said you are Newman, not Seinfeld.

I agree with Freeman that they are pronounced in same way but it is Jim habit to notice others.Today in college i read the Novel "Mr Chips"and i read there that ' aT THE AGE OF fORTYeIGHT is the age at which a permanence of habits begin to be Predicated"But when i think about jim i think that it was wrong.

Sehrish,

Maybe you are right. Jim is 48 years old. Please name any permanent/old habbit of Jim that you noticed. I'd love to know..

i am not saying that he is 48 years old. Jim habit is to notice the mistakes of others but he cannot solved them in right way. He disheart others and i dislike such people.Now tell me Boy i am right or not.
For Boy

Sehrish said: "I agree with Freeman that they are pronounced in same way but it is Jim habit to notice others."

Freeman was making a generalization that is wrong for an entire region of the country.

Sehrish said: "He disheart others and i dislike such people.Now tell me Boy i am right or not."

He does nothing of the sort and, while I'm not Boy, I'll tell you you're wrong. I have no clue as to Jim's age, but I can tell you that his criticism of Freeman has nothing to do with his age....it has to do with Freeman's claim.

Sehrish,

mjd is right. I agree with his views. Jim is not like that. He is a cool headed guy. He is only irritated when he has to answer some of us silly questions. Though I feel that he should not assume all users as ESL students. Here all sorts of people hang around like teachers, Grammarians and ESL students. Their questions have to be varied in range and they are normally related to the intricacies of the language.
I guess Freeman is one of those people.

''Also be careful not to generalise: there are many different accents in the USA, they don't all pronounce "Mary", "marry" and "merry" as homophones.''

Australian Jim, How do you know that? Have you heard any Americans pronounce them differently? All Americans I've heard pronounce them the same way and do a similar thing with ''ferry'' and ''fairy'', ''Barry'' and ''berry'', ''Harry'' and ''hairy'', ''carry'' and ''Kerry'' etc.

Irish Jim,

This discussion has gotten rather silly. There is really nothing to argue here. I'm American who lives in the Norheast and I can say with one hundred percent certainty that I and those who live in my region of the U.S. do not pronounce marry/merry/Mary, fairy/ferry, caught/cot the same. Does this happen elsewhere in the U.S.? Yes, in the Midwest and on the West Coast, but not here.

mjd, Your distinctive region must be a minority then because most Americans seem to pronounce them the same way. All of the Americans I've heard pronounce them the same. I guess the Northeast is the region that distinguishes pairs like marry/merry/Mary.

''I'm American who lives in the Norheast and I can say with one hundred percent certainty that I and those who live in my region of the U.S. do not pronounce marry/merry/Mary, fairy/ferry, caught/cot the same.''

''I'm American who lives''

Shouldn't that be ''I am an American'' and the ''Northeast''.

I've also noticed a difference between marry/merry/Mary etc. among some Americans, and I haven't even been as privileged to hear every regional accent there is possible among the American people as others here seemingly have... might I also add that since I do not have a good mind to look up the word 'most' in the dictionary, I will continue to blindly believe that 'most' hasn't been re-defined to mean 'all' --yet.

Smith,

Sorry about that, Smitty.....I should've proofread.

I have to say that I rponounce them all the similarly. "mary" and "merry" definitely are pronounced the same for me. "Marry" is slightly different as I prounounce this word with the "a" instead of the "e" I use for the others.

However, mjd is quite right. I went to school in the Northeast and they do not pronounce "Mary" "merry" and "marry" the same.

"Most" is definitely not "all". "Most" is even varied for me as I pronounce "marry" differntly than the other two.