Conference thebay::joyoflex

    Well, I grew up in rural Pennsylvania and all my relatives always
    pronounced it, "Ant". When I was a kid, I always thought people who
    pronounced "aunt" as "AH-nt" and "vase" as "vaaz" (sorry, my terminal
    doesn't do all those funny characters) instead of "vase" with a long
    "a", were stuck up and pretentious. It still sounds strange, but
    I know what they are saying now.
    
    Tamzen 

I've never had a problem with "Ahnt" (or "Ont", if you will.)  "Ant"
definitely sounds wrong, and "Awnt" really sounds pretentious. 

Larry-who grew-up-in-New-York-City

    I've always pronounced it "ant." I grew up bouncing all over the
    U.S. and some other parts of the world (my father was a career
    Air Force officer), but spent most of my youth in the South and
    in Ohio.

I pronounce "aunt" as "ant," although I believe "ont" to be the correct
way to say it.

As fore "vase," spelling dictates that it should be pronounced to rhyme
with "base."  My rule is that if it cost more than $100.00, it is a "vahs."
:-)


John M.

My husband, who is from North Carolina, says "aint".  I was born and 
raised in N.J. and I've always said "ant".

-Allison

Most Bostonians who say "ahnt" are pronouncing "aren't", as in "Cahs ahnt 
allowed to pahk in Hahvid yahd."

    I use "ant."  Depends where you come from.  I pronounce _canis
    familiaris_ "dog" to rhyme with "log"; many pronounce it "dawg."
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.
    

    re .7:
    
    >> I pronounce _canis familiaris_ "dog" to rhyme with "log"; 
    >> many pronounce it "dawg."
       
    but 'dawg' does rhyme with "log", i.e. I pronounce it 'lawg'.
    
    It's the pronounciation of the vowels that determines accents, or
    so I hear.
    
    I'm from the east coast (Florida, Long Island, Mass., New Jersey)
                                                   
                  /
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                  ) ///
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My mother is a Connecticut Yankee; her NYC sister is my friendly
aunt, pronounced 'Ant Penny'. 

My father is an Ohio German; his Cleveland sister is my snobbish
aunt, pronounced 'Ahnt Barbara'. 

    I was always amused by the fact that Spider-Man had an A(u)nt May.
    
    (Actually, I always pronounced it "ahnt".)
    
    --- jerry

    Re: .4
    
    > As fore "vase," spelling dictates that it should be pronounced to rhyme
    > with "base."
    
    Oh yeah?  How about through, rough, ought, bough, cough?  When did
    spelling have anything to do with pronunciation? :-)
    
    I say "Ahnt" and "Vahz", but then I'm from Southern England.
    
    Jeff.

    In Midwestern, unaccented English :^), it's ant.  Any attempt to
    pronounce it ahnt would end if you had an Aunt Gladys.  
    
    As for vase, I read somewhere that vahze is the proper pronunciation 
    but, to lessen the snob factor, vaze was acceptable and better than vase.
            
    Born and raised in the Heartland...
    
    Susan

    Midwestern English unaccented???
    
    My Iowa cousins pronounce the name of the capital of Spain with
    the accent on the first syllable and my mother's name (Doris) as
    though it were spelled Dorse (rhymes with equus).

    If "ANT BEE" was good enough for sheriff Andy Taylor, then its good
    enough for me.  TV made me what I am today.

    RE: .14
    
    Let's see...
    
    If a bee wolf is a wasp
               and
    If an ant bear is a doodle bug
               then 
    What is an ant bee?    
    
    
    John M.

    An ant be an ant.  That's what an ant be.
    

    Re .15:
    
    A humbug.  [With thanks to Booker T. Washington, who first made
                a similar reply.]
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.
    

    My Aunt Sybil lisps a lot.

    Re .14:
    
    But the Mayberry folks didn't say "ANT" Bee, they said "AINT" Bee...
    
    -b (who ain't an ant or an aunt)

    	I can remember when we first moved to N.E. and the kids teachers
    insisting that aunt is pronounced ahnt. I looked it up in the American
    Heritage dictionary and from it determined that both ahnt and ant
    are correct but that ant is preferred. Just the way I was raised
    in southern NY.
    	According to the same dictionary for vase, the preferred order
    is VAS, VAZ, and lastly VAHZ.

Re:< Note 302.20 by VAXWRK::CONNOR >

>>    in southern NY.

         Is that Southern Southern NY - Westchester, NYC, and Long Island -
         or Northern Southern NY - the area through which Route 17 runs
         (also known as "the Southern Tier")?
         
         Bruce (former guylander)

    My brother's children have one aunt from each side of their
    family -- but we are both named "Ann".  So I am "Ahnt Ann"
    and their mother's sister, who is from west of the Hudson,
    is "Ant Ann".
    						Ann B.

.20>   According to the same dictionary for vase, the preferred order
.20>   is VAS, VAZ, and lastly VAHZ.

    Does that mean we all have to show DEFERENS to your VAS ???   :^)

    Several replies to this topic have touched on variations of the
    same problem: the vowel sounds in words such as Ant, Ahnt, and Aont
    (or dog and dawg). 
    
    When I took linguistics in college, I was taught that the major
    dialectical distinction in this country revolves around the fact
    that most residents of the northern plains and western mountains
    don't have the vowel sound that I've represented as "Aont" in their
    phonetic repertoire. (The same way most Americans can't handle the
    German "Ach")  Linguists who care about such things call this sound
    the "Open O", as I recall; it's halfway between the short-a sound
    and the short (closed) o sound. 
    
    I can't illustrate it for you -- I'm from Montana and my o's are
    closed.
    
    --bonnie