Speaking of strawberries the other day, which are just coming into season (yum,yum!), I caught myself saying strawBEARY (or, BAREY) instead of strawBERRY (or, BURY). Reflecting upon this it seems that I have readily used both pronunciations over the years when speaking of berries of all kinds, without any rhyme or reason, and believe this to be just an aberration of lazy linguistics. Is anyone aware of any dialect or accent or region which prefers one pronunciation over the other? Does anyone else use both these verbal forms when speaking of the berry? Does anyone here use *only one or the other? Would be interested to hear...

Janie Hibler, The Berry Bible, New York: William Morrow, 2004.

Just bought it at Powell's Bookstore in Portland. It doesn't answer Whitman's question but I was so excited about getting this book I just had to share.

Straw Burry? Who taught you to per noun sit that way?

Besides, berry, beary, and bury are exact homophones in my dialect anyway.

http://www.bartleby.com/61/99/B0569900.html

STRAW~b'ri jam for me, please (fresh-made this last weekend) and wonderful Spanish berries (BERR~iz) that are not tasteless mush like so much of the modern English agro-chemical synthesised pap... they should be ploughed straight back in - that buries (BERR-ease) them suitably.

When picking strawberries in Kent years ago, you would often be working alongside hopfields, a vital ingredient of beery refreshments - the thought of several cooling draughts in the evening made the hot work much more bearable (BAIR~uh~bul).

> berry, beary, and bury are exact homophones in my dialect anyway.

yup. in my pikanik basket, too...

My father is from Ireland. I learned to say "bury" to rhyme with "furry". Later I learned to say it to rhyme with "hairy", at least when referring to an interment. As a suffix on a place name, it is actually the furry-bury, although I've noticed that many Northern Ontarians speak of the mystical city of Sudberry (Sudbury).

I'm with mav - STRAW~b'ri. The b'r is like the one in Edinb'ruh. Or maybe not...quite.

STRAW~b'ri

Why would anyone make straw-flavored cheese?

Think of it as camembert cheese straws, Musick.

On the contrary, I like you both. In your different ways. Some very different.

Musick being more unique than the two of us put together, of course.

...the two of us put together..

Just what does *that have to do with cheese. [ROTFLMFAO]

Yes, it's often strawb'ry here too - complete with the NZ-standard hemidemisemischwa where the apostrophe is. Musick's straw-brie is also common here.

Besides, berry, beary, and bury are exact homophones in my dialect anyway.

Well, askually, I think Elizabeth's offerings of furry/burry and hairy/bairy are closer to the pronunciations I had in mind. Thanks Elizabeth...and a belated welcome! :)

Musick asks "Why would anyone make straw-flavored cheese?"

There is an Italian cow's milk cheese made in the Piedmont in Italy called paglierino or formaggio della paglia which is aged in straw.

It's the only fruit with its seeds on the outside - so I am told. I can't think of another.
But whatever- they are delicious!

Now, what is a "fruit" with the flowers on the inside?

Inselpeter asks: "what is a 'fruit' with the flowers on the inside?"

That would be the fig, he answered monoeciously.

"he answered monoeciously"

"You are about as much fun as a hermaphrodite," he replied, not knowing whether that meant a very little or a very lot.

I'd pronounce it as FRAZE (spelled Fraise)

Actually WO'N, I've only ever heard it pronounced as straw-bairy.