Pronouncing Buried

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Good morning. This is Sandy calling from Pacific Grove, California.

Hi, Sandy. Welcome.

Hi. Yes.

Well, my husband and I saw the word buried written, and it occurred to us that we always pronounce it like raspberry. And when we read it, it looks like buried. Buried. And is there a correct way or an incorrect way? And does anybody ever actually pronounce it buried?

Oh, boy. You’ve opened a can of buries here. Last question for us. Yes, people do say buried. Just go to Pennsylvania. There’ll be lots of them. Go to Maryland. Go to Maryland. And is there a correct way?

Well, you know how we are in this show. We believe in variation, and we think variation in English is normal. So there is a common pronunciation, and then there’s a less common one. But there’s a really interesting story about why there’s more than one pronunciation. Do you want to hear it?

Yes, I’d love to. So the Old English word was spelled B-Y-R-G-A-N. It was pronounced something like burrion. And so as this word in the United Kingdom spread around, there came about a bunch of regional pronunciations, different vowels happening here. And eventually it started to be sounding like bury or berry or beery, something like that.

-huh. And at the same time the pronunciations were shifting, we also had the spellings were shifting, and there became standardization of both later. But what happened was the pronunciation standardized in a way that didn’t necessarily match with the spelling standardization. So you end up with B-U-R-Y for most people in the UK and the US is pronounced berry.

Berry, right. It’s not quite like B-E-R-R-Y, like the fruit, but it’s very close to it. However, those other pronunciation traditions did not die out. And when those people settled in the United States and other parts of the English-speaking world, they brought that particular pronunciation with them, which is why in Maryland and Pennsylvania you can sometimes still hear it. And they have a longstanding historical connection to those old dialect traditions in the United Kingdom. It’s not like they’ve all independently decided, oh, we’re going to pronounce it like it looks.

Right, right. Well, that’s interesting because we moved from Maryland, and I thought I was sure that I had heard it a lot more, and now I don’t hear it at all.

Oh, yeah, there you go. Yes, and my daughter moved up to Canada, and she was pronouncing it buried, and I asked her, I said, do you say bury? And she said, I don’t think I do, and she asked people up in Canada, and they all say bury. So now she says bury.

That’s interesting because I spend a lot of time around someone from Maryland, and I now say Burry, even though I used to say Barry. And there are parts of Pennsylvania and New Jersey and a little bit of Maryland, parts of Delaware, where they might say Murray instead of Mary, like Merry Christmas. And they might say American instead of American. And Furry instead of Fairy. I mean, I’m kind of over-exaggerating the different pronunciations so you can hear it. But it’s really interesting, like a nice pocket of very consistent dialect speech there. That particular difference has been studied for at least 100 years.

So, Sandy, you’re not wrong. Yeah, not wrong. Right, right. But a good reason that they should be different. Like we always say on the show, there’s more than one way to say things. The most common one is going to get you in the least trouble, but the other one’s fine if that’s all you have.

Right, yes, yes. Okay, well, thank you very much. Very interesting. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for your information. Bye-bye.

Okay, bye-bye, Sandy. We love that diversity in English. We’d love to hear what you’ve noticed, 877-929-9673, or send it to us in email. The address is words@waywordradio.org.