Ment and mint are pronouced the same!

Those two words sound exactly the same!

I...will have to get Xavius to explain to me what bizarre accent you people have that they sound the same.

Mintal? Mintor? What the hell!?

I believe that if you say it ne-CRO-men-tate, the "men" is cut off into a "min", almost like an e-i schwa. Now, if you pronounce it ne-cro-MEN-tate, then it makes a huge difference.

Yes! They sound just like Mental and Mentor.

Just like Pen and Pin sound the same.






I tried it stressing both ways, and the 'men' sounded the same both times. Though, when just saying it, I do tend to put the stress on the 'men' syllable. But really... 'men' and 'min' sound just alike when I say them.

*peer*

No, they don't.

Die hippie. Die die die.

This would be the standard-issue accent for whites living near the Gulf of Mexico, Shiri, normally called the "Southern drawl." Interesting tidbit, though, is that it's one of the few examples of the southern accent spreading northward. Normally, pronuniciations that're technically wrong slowly get flushed out. The pen/pin blurring is actually becoming more common.

Anyways, George Bush has this accent. Listen to him if you want to know what it sounds like.

And consequently what you should never EVER try to sound like.

Meh. George Bush's accent is 20% Southern and 80% I'm-A-Complete-Jackass.

Here's a nice article about the Southern Accent (which is actually a group of several different accents really. Mine isn't even all that strong cause I've moved around so much. Though at times I do surprise myself with a particularly 'hick' sounding phrase! ) What Wiki Says

And Southern states aren't just the ones that touch the Gulf of Mexico either.

Thank God for the South. Pen and pin are definitely the same. And it's not just whites who speak with a southern accent...that blew my mind.

Very true!

Blacks in southern states have a completely different accent from the whites.

Pen and Pin sound nowhere near the same unless you're drunk maybe. We have Pen which I pronounce as pehn and then pin pronounced like pin.

Apparently, you don't know all the black people. And, as far as I know there are a lot more raes than whites and blacks in the south.

There are. Hispanics around Houston tended to use the white accent, assuming they didn't have a foreign accent. And, of course, not all black people in those states have that accent, just like not all Southerners can't differentiate between pen and pin. Doesn't change that the accents are very, very distinct.

Not really. There are a few differences depending on where in the South we're talking about, but for the most part the Southern Drawl permeates all races.

While I'm sure there are much more technical ways to describe it, you notice the difference in trailing r sounds, which are much more open and consonant-like, a squishing of dipthongs (which is the exact opposite of the white southern accent, which reverses the emphasis of dipthongs), a more rounded long o, and a less nasal short a sound. That's bigger than the difference between the West and the Great Lakes. I'm not finding any scholarly sites detailing the difference on Google, probably because I don't know the terminology for any of it, but I'm seeing that a lot of the world can tell the difference between the two.

Could be I just don't notice that big a difference because I'm around it all the time. No matter what color the person talking is, it sounds Southern to me. But I suppose if I was from somewhere else, where everyone sounded very different, I'd be able to pick up the difference more easily. Then again, it might also be because I've moved around so much. It's muddied up my own accent and I don't hear the subtle differences that people who've only been around one sort of Southern accent can. The old lady at the doctor's office asked me if I ever lived in Mississippi just based on the way I said the word Apple, for instance. I've also had someone notice something I said that pointed me out as being from Georgia. I've lived in both those states, and others and have picked up bits from each.

But in all of them... Pen and Pin are the same. In fact, it's kinda common to refer to a Pen as an 'ink-pen' in the South, because otherwise asking to borrow a pen might get you a writing implement or a sharp metal object.

Lose. Necromanatee.

(And, really, mint is not the same as ment. M-in-t. M-ehn-t.)