KungFuPanda Posted February 26, 2023 Share Posted February 26, 2023 I vaguely remember my Ohio cousins all saying “melk.” Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scarlett Posted February 26, 2023 Share Posted February 26, 2023 Raised in AR and I say short i rhymes with silk. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clarita Posted February 26, 2023 Share Posted February 26, 2023 Mostly rhymes with silk (California), however I tend to change my pronunciation of words depending on how the person around me pronounces it. I spent a week at a conference with a man from the UK and on the 3rd day unintentionally greeted him with "Cheery-o!" in the morning. I'm pretty easily swayed. 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prairiewindmomma Posted February 26, 2023 Share Posted February 26, 2023 Part of the challenge is that my relatives that say “melk” would swear up and down they say “milk”! 😂 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maize Posted February 26, 2023 Share Posted February 26, 2023 22 minutes ago, prairiewindmomma said: Part of the challenge is that my relatives that say “melk” would swear up and down they say “milk”! 😂 Probably because they are saying what to them is an i...it's just that the sound represented by i has shifted. And the way our brains work, we hear what we expect/what we are used to. My dialect is one in which dawn sounds like don and sail sounds like sell, and I don't usually notice a difference even when people in whose dialect those are quite different sounds say those words. My brain processes what it expects. I find language endlessly fascinating. It kind of makes me sad when regional dialects get absorbed into more mainstream/prestige dialects. I wish I had recordings of the way my grandma spoke, she used grammatical variants that I didn't think much of as a child but now would love to record and maybe be able to trace where they came from. Thinks like "I seen" that I know are standard in some dialects. What is interesting to me is that that isn't common grammar where she was born but I think comes from deeper family roots. My guess is that it came from her dad's family and they brought it with them when they moved across the country. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prairiewindmomma Posted February 27, 2023 Share Posted February 27, 2023 Have you ever watched regional news broadcasts from the 1970s? It’s fascinating to hear how different pronunciation varied by region. We have moved a long way toward standardization of accents since then. I agree, it’s a bit of a loss. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TechWife Posted February 27, 2023 Share Posted February 27, 2023 Southeastern US. Milk rhymes with silk. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TechWife Posted February 27, 2023 Share Posted February 27, 2023 10 minutes ago, prairiewindmomma said: Have you ever watched regional news broadcasts from the 1970s? It’s fascinating to hear how different pronunciation varied by region. We have moved a long way toward standardization of accents since then. I agree, it’s a bit of a loss. They learn to modulate their voices when they are in school. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WildflowerMom Posted February 27, 2023 Share Posted February 27, 2023 (edited) I pronounce it with a long E. Meelk sorry— Georgia here. (USA) Edited February 27, 2023 by WildflowerMom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dirty ethel rackham Posted February 27, 2023 Share Posted February 27, 2023 Rhymes with silk, ilk, bilk. Chicago suburbs all my life. And that's pretty much all I heard growing up. I did have one friend who pronounced it melk, but her parents were from rural central Illinois. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alisoncooks Posted February 27, 2023 Share Posted February 27, 2023 On 2/25/2023 at 8:02 PM, Pawz4me said: I think I rhyme it with silk, but I probably say it more like ^this.^ LOL Okay, that’s probably accurate for me as well. Maybe it’s dependent on context… Quick! Grab the milk! vs Ugh… we’re out of meee-ulk. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arcadia Posted February 27, 2023 Share Posted February 27, 2023 (edited) 15 minutes ago, alisoncooks said: Okay, that’s probably accurate for me as well. Maybe it’s dependent on context… Quick! Grab the milk! vs Ugh… we’re out of meee-ulk. My kids: “Mamee I want mee-ulk” ”Do we still have milch” Edited February 27, 2023 by Arcadia 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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