[Fiji Hill]

I’m married to a native Californian now. He definitely doesn’t have an accent.

Californians speak with an accent, which is probably influenced by immigrants from the Midwest and South. Here is a list of words and how they are pronounced in California:

• end--rhymes with "pinned"
• anti--rhymes with "man tie"
• orange--the first letter is like the "o" in "oboe"
• any--rhymes with Guinea
• caught and cot--both rhyme with "pot"
• Mary, marry and merry--all three rhyme with Jerry
• there is no cow in Moscow

[pops88]

My husband is 56. I haven’t noticed those things in his dialect really. He comes from a long line of Mormons that migrated across the U.S. extensively. I wonder if some of that dialect has come a bit more recently. My mother was a reading specialist and worked very hard to make sure I was pronouncing words correctly without interjecting dialect, like “yellow” instead of “yella.” I still ended up with a bit of a Midwestern, nasal twang. One of the funniest things I heard was on a kid’s educational program in New Zealand- chair and cheer were homonyms.

[Melas]

You’re going to have to help me out here Fiji.

What is end supposed to rhyme with, if not pinned?

Of course anti sounds like man tie.

Hell, except for Moscow, I pronounce everything as you’ve described.