Pronouncing “Bury”

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Oh, hello.

Hi, who’s this?

This is Andy from San Diego.

What can we help you with, Andy?

I’m calling today because as a 7th grade English teacher, I’ve had the opportunity to use a word a couple of times this year that my students have taken issue with, especially the way I pronounce the words. So I wanted to find out some more about this.

Okay.

Is it the way you’re saying legit or random?

No, it isn’t. Is that a question you just had?

No, no. Those are slang words that teachers might be forbidden from using.

Well, no, no. It’s just a traditional word, but they don’t like my pronunciation. So basically, the word is bury, as in to inter someone. And of course, it came up when we were studying idiomatic expressions. We talked about burying your head in the sand. And they were like, what are you talking about? You mean burying your head in the sand? And I was like, oh, okay. Well, we have different pronunciations in English. And I wasn’t quite sure. And then when we were actually studying Latin roots and we came to Terra and we were talking about to inter, and I said it means to bury, and they’re like, bury? So I said, you know what, this is the second time this has come up this year. I think I need to seek some expert advice on this. And so I’m calling you.

All right.

I see.

So you grew up saying bury for B-U-R-Y.

Correct.

And where are you from, Andy?

Well, that’s a long story, but I mostly grew up in Arizona, Tempe, Arizona, and Southern California. But my mother was from East Texas, so I suspect that it may have come through her speech in some way.

Okay, so when you were growing up, you heard it and that sounded natural. It wasn’t as if you were reading words like jury or fury and deciding, oh, well, this word B-U-R-Y must be bury, like jury and fury.

You know, I don’t think so. I mean, as far as I know, that’s the way it would be said. And I sort of, you know, I surreptitiously asked, like, how do you pronounce this word? I didn’t tell them the word, and then they repeated it. I, you know, in a roundabout way asked them, and they pronounced it that way.

So, Andy, I also am curious. You’ve never had anybody call you on this before?

No.

No students?

Interesting.

So they’re ribbing you about it, giving you a hard time, or just telling you you’re absolutely wrong?

No, it’s not a huge issue, but, you know, it comes up and, you know, it rankles them and they go, what are you doing? And I’m like, okay, well, let me look into this further.

What do you say, Martha?

I say berry.

I say berry. I absolutely say berry. And, in fact, some dictionaries won’t even have the berry pronunciation in it. I know Merriam-Webster does. They tend to be more permissive about their pronunciations.

Wow.

But they have berry. And I’ve heard it, and I don’t know that it’s a regional thing at all. But it goes back to an old English word. This is the word. It’s B-Y-R-G-A-N. And it’s pronounced something like birrian.

Birrian.

Yeah. And here’s the thing about Barry is that it comes from two different paths of English in the United Kingdom, right? It has the spelling from one region and the pronunciation from another. And then they were married in print once the language started to be standardized and regularized. And so that’s why it’s curious. That’s why the written form of it appears not to match the way that we say it. Because most people, it’s something like 99% of people in the English-speaking world pronounce it as Barry. And those who pronounce it as Burry, they may have a variety of reasons to do it. Usually it’s because they learn to say it from a lot of reading, which is what Martha was getting at. Or they learned it from their parents who learned to say it from a lot of reading.

Yes, my mother and I are both voracious readers. So that might be.

Yeah, you know, I have a million of those words where I mispronounce them because I only have ever seen them in books. And once they come out of my mouth, I sound like an idiot. But what are you going to do?

Okay.

And busy is another one of those words. It’s kind of the same story.

B-U-S-Y.

Exactly. So it has a pronunciation that doesn’t seem to match its spelling. It’s because the spelling and the pronunciation come from two different historical paths of English. And English is just a mess, which is the whole reason you can have an hour-long weekly radio show about it. Because there’s so much to explain.

Right? Exactly. Okay. But here’s the thing is, your students are using the traditional, typical, most common pronunciation. Yours is far more unusual. It’s not completely taboo.

Right. Maybe next year when you have a whole new batch of students, just to top the other pronunciation.

Exactly. You don’t have to, but it would stop them from concentrating too much on what you’re saying, and they would pay a little more attention to what you’re teaching.

Exactly.

All right. All right. Well, I totally appreciate your taking my call and clarifying that for me.

Thank you so much. Bye-bye.

Bye. Bye. I love these questions. We’re getting to the heart of English. Why is it so messed up, Martha? Why is it so messed up?

I didn’t. I didn’t do it. Who do we blame?

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