He is going to marry merry Mary

The last time I checked his map data was a few months ago (so I assume little if any has changed since).

There were a few places on his maps where my experience didn't match his results, but then I'm neither a linguist nor have I explicitly tried to test people on their speech :-). I notice that he really doesn't have what I consider a lot of samples in the west. If I remember correctly, the Portland, Oregon, and Seattle, Washington, area had a few samples (certainly less than 10) where supposedly there was no caught/cot distinction. At the time, I wondered whether the test subjects were native to the area or had relocated from elsewhere.

Some of his samples I could get data about by clicking on the dot. Supposedly a sound sample was available, but I could not play it on my system.

I know a guy online from Portland, OR in his early 30s who says that he pronounces "caught" and "cot" the same, and says that it is common there. He is a native. I got him to admit to it when he claimed that he "did not have an accent," which I replied to him was complete bullsh*t. He had no idea that there were places where the words were pronounced differently.

I would pronounce all 3 exactly the same.

BTW, I had no idea there were people who pronounced caught/cot differently before I read about it in a dictionary. No one makes a distinction here...

Here in the Northeast (I live in New Jersey) "cot" rhymes with "hot," ('ah' sound) but "caught" makes an "aw" sound...like in "law," "bought," "fought," "raw," etc. It's difficult to explain a sound on a forum.

I live in Northeast Ohio, near Cleveland.

mary merry Mary, all pronounced the same.

cot rhymes with hot
caught rhymes with thought (Has the "aw" sound mjd mentioned)

The for/far thing definitely isn't true here.

For and four are pronounced the same. (Also longer sound that far)
Far rhymes with car, bar, jar, etc.

Oh, and talk is definitely pronounced "tauk"

''The for/far thing definitely isn't true here.''

The for/far thing definitely isn't true anywhere. ''for'' and ''far'' sound very different and nothing alike. [fo:r] vs. [fa:r]. ''for'' and ''four'' are pronounced the same in my area.

''talk'' is pronounced ''tahk'' in my region.

"Here in the Northeast (I live in New Jersey) "cot" rhymes with "hot," ('ah' sound) but "caught" makes an "aw" sound...like in "law," "bought," "fought," "raw," etc. It's difficult to explain a sound on a forum. "

Here in California, all those words have the same sound. The "ah" (Spanish a) sound.

O.K.
i'll pronounce cost as ca:st, lost as la:st,
law as lo: and for as fo:,

As a New Zealander I pronounce the Merry/Mary the same, but Marry is different.

In California, law is la:.

Mary, merry, marry http://www.alt-usage-english.org/speechexamples.html

1 sound fits all: http://www.alt-usage-english.org/mmm_bc.wav

3 different vowels: http://www.alt-usage-english.org/mmm_rf.wav

That's interesting that Kiwi's don't distinguish "merry" and "Mary". The Aussie accent and the Kiwi accent are close but we make the distinction. Blah, how about the following pairs?

ferry/fairy
Derry/dairy