What about lay and lair then?

The same. "lay" rhymes with "day" and "lair" rhymes with "dare".

Then what about layer?

Like "lay" with an extra schwa at the end. If followed by a vowel, it also has an r.

In rapid speech, lair and layer are much closer than they are in careful speech. It’s like how flour and flower are homophones.

Hello, @David - After your yesterday announcement ELL has gone from 27 to 16 questions with a score of 10 or more. Can you post another annuncement?

It is a challenge to transcribe lair and layer distinctly.

@tchrist I'm not sure I agree, for my accent. No matter how quickly I speak, my "lair" and "layer" will always be quite different.

The second one is longer.

And I like to think it has two syllables.

With a /j/ between them.

If so, we can make the beta in two or three days, @David

@Carlo_R. It seems to me that this is the democratic process at work. Reg, Matt and others frequently post "support our proposal". The fact that voting things to 10 helps is public knowledge. You want me to retract my contrary advice? So only one side gets to campaign? How is that democratic?

I have a terrible time understanding people from Mississippi, because their layers all sound like Princess Leias, and their errors sound like my eras.

It might not confuse you as much as it does me.

@tchrist For me, it's less about the length than about the openness or closeness of the vowel.

These are people for whom boy has two syllables.

Democratic is a dialictical process where opinion can be changed, @David

@Carlo_R. Now that number is 14 :-)

You are using an open vowel like in let then? I am using the one from lake.

Which is not as open, and arguably has a glide at the end.

@Mah Well

@Carlo_R. I'm not sure what you mean by dialictical. Can you clarify please?

@Carlo_R. …?

Yes, lair is like let for me; possibly even more open.

I think there is a mare–mayor merger in some speakers.

I pronounce mare and mayor identically.

@DavidWallace That is interesting.

I can make mayor sound different, but I seldom do so.

Oh sorry, "dialectical" am copy from Engel and Marx this term.

@Max Well, two o three days and we see ELL to start.

I never thought of the vowel in those words as being so open. It is not so for me.

Does mayor then have the vowel of met or of may? For me, it is the second.

Do mare and lair rhyme? For me they do.

@Carlo_R. In that case, I agree with you. But that doesn't mean that I have changed my own opinion. I am still strongly opposed to ELL, for reasons that I have outlined over the past day or two. I will not be posting a retraction to my earlier comment. At least not today. I may change my opinion tomorrow of course. Stranger things have happened.

@tchrist More like "met" for me, but possibly slightly more open. It rhymes with "lair".

I don’t believe Carlo realizes that he has to register as a political lobbyist in certain jurisdictions.

Anybody who is capable of reading my comments is also capable of reading Reg Dwight's comments. Hopefully, they'll then make up their own minds.

@tchrist I would like that word, but it is too late for me. Thanks a lot for your nice word

may, make, made, maim, mare all have the same vowel for me; also tame, take, tear all have that same vowel. I have no words with the vowel of let if an r follows it. See the Mary–marry–merry merger. I can unnaturally produce those three distinctly, but do not normally do so. Then Mary has the vowel of may, marry of mad, and merry of met.

Actually, suddenly I'm not sure of any of the above, @tchrist. I'm wondering whether the sound I make for "day" is more open than I thought. I might be confusing myself by the glide at the end. Like, maybe it's more like /dɛj/ and less like /dej/.

To say merry with the vowel of met makes me sound, I dunno, English or something.

At 79 one thoughs to other more important thing: family first of all, then ELU.

So, for me, "lair" = /lɛ:/, but I'm not sure whether "layer" is /lejə/ or /lɛjə/ or even /læjə/. The glide makes it hard to tell where the vowel starts.

You just know this one is gonna get supercollided:

(and for all these words, of course, I add the r only if it's followed by a vowel)

There is an East Coast accent that says Larry with the /æ/ vowel. It is really weird. Larry King says his own name this way.

I say /læri/, I think.

That would be the weird one.

How do you say it?

Most Americans rhyme Larry with very and berry.

Really? How did I not know that?

Insularity?

You live on an island, eh? :)

Yes, but one that is bombarded by American television and movies.

True enough. Which returns us to your question.

So in general, I think New Zealanders understand American accents much better than Americans understand New Zealand accents. But maybe we don't actually analyse too much what it is that we're hearing.

Did you ever have any difficulty understanding Nathan's speech?

Difficultly?

No, of course not.

Doesn’t mean I didn’t tease him.

Accents from the Deep South of the U.S. are harder for me than his.

I know New Zealanders who had difficulty making themselves understood in California. Their solution was to parody what they thought of as American accents. It worked fine for them.

Similarly the closer you get to the Hebrides, the harder it gets.

And a while back, I posted a link in this room to a video of some New Zealander actors. Many of the people who were here at the time claimed to have difficulty understanding them, particularly the North American contingent.

For most Americans, all these rhyme: Barrie berry bury carry dairy fairy ferry faerie Gary hairy Harry Jerry Kerry Larry marry Mary merry nary parry tarry vary very wary.

There are certainly rough/broad Australian accents. I don’t know that New Zealand has as much diversity in that regard, outside the fushunchups sort.

I forgot cherry and prairie.

This is the previous discussion on this matter, starting with the NZ video.

A couple of the lines were tangled. Two, I think.

And one of them had two words.

The comments in the previous discussion confuse me.

How so?

(btw Norsewood is a small town in the eastern part of the North Island)

:-)

Some people just don’t get out much.

Night and day:

Good luck with those. :)

@tchrist My God.