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Pronunciation

It seems there is some debate about how the name of Mariemont is pronounced. So, a discussion seems in order. I grew up in the area and graduated from Mariemont High School, and I'm quite certain it is pronounced "Mary-mont" and not "Marie-mont". This is a common and easy to understand error as the spelling would suggest the latter pronunciation.

It took me a minute, but I have found a source: [1] which spells it out as "MARE ee mahnt". So unless there is some other reliable source that directly contradicts this I believe we can consider the issue settled. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:02, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

@Beeblebrox: The source prescribes the pronunciation "MARE ee mahnt" (it doesn't use IPA). If we were to adhere to it in an unconditional manner (if that's the appropriate way to put it) then we'd have to transcribe the name of this village as /ˈmɛərmɑːnt/. But transcriptions enclosed within IPAc-en link to Help:IPA/English, which is a diaphonemic guide that covers multiple dialects of English: General American English, Standard Canadian English, Received Pronunciation, Northern England English, General Australian English, etc. Because Help:IPA/English is like that, anything that links to it should adhere to that guide, and that guide doesn't assume the Mary–marry–merry merger. The list that you've linked to does assume it (look at the respellings like "CHAIR ee FORK" for "Cherry Fork" or "HAIR ihs burg" for "Harrisburg"). In English English, Australian English and similar accents (so... dozens of millions of speakers) "Mary" /ˈmɛəri/, "marry" /ˈmæri/ and "merry" /ˈmɛri/ all have different vowels, and this distinction is very stable (unlike, say, the distinction between the voiceless /hw/ as in "which" and the voiced /w/ "witch" in the US). In much of the North America (US and Canada alike), these three fall together as /ˈmɛri/ or perhaps /ˈmeɪri/ (which is the equivalent of /ˈmɛəri/ in rhotic accents - whether the accent contains a phonemic /ɛə/ or not depends on whether it contrasts with /eɪ/. In England and Australia, there are minimal pairs such as "they're" /ðɛə/ vs. "they" /ðeɪ/, which in the US and Canada depend on the presence vs. absence of /r/ - /ðɛr, ðeɪ/ or /ðeɪr, ðeɪ/ - either analysis is fine).
In England and Australia "Cherry Fork" and "Harrisburg" would be pronounced /tʃɛri fɔːk/ (I'm not sure about the stress) and /ˈhærɪsbɜːɡ/, with vowels distinct from that found in the stressed syllable of "Ontario" /ɒnˈtɛərioʊ/. The majority of speakers of North American English are unable to make these distinctions (see [2] for details). This means that the aforementioned names are pronounced /tʃɛri fɔːrk ~ tʃeɪri fɔːrk/ (whatever the correct stress is), /ˈhɛrɪsbərɡ ~ ˈheɪrɪsbərɡ/ (in much of NAE, /ɜːr/ is the same as /ər/) and /ɑːnˈtɛrioʊ/ ~ /ɑːnˈteɪrioʊ/ in mainstream American and Canadian English. Whether the merged vowel is perceived as closer to /ɛ/ or /eɪ/ (or, at times, perhaps even /æ/) is irrelevant to the basic fact that the original distinction between /ɛ/, /æ/ and /eɪ/ is not made before /r/. I can see that you yourself don't make distinction between "Mary" and "merry" (not sure about "marry") because what is given in the source as "MARE ee mahnt" was understood by you to be equivalent to "MERR ee mont", which it clearly isn't in England and Australia. English English and Australian English also distinguish between the long /ɑː/ as in "father" and the short /ɒ/ as in "lot" (this distinction, again, is very stable), so no native speaker from those countries would respell /ɒ/ as "ah". The site, while it's useful, is Americentric in the way it transcribes those names. Brits and Australians would be puzzled by many if not most of their transcriptions.
Even when a source doesn't make the distinction between /ɛ/, /æ/ and /eɪ/ before /r/ (again, the last vowel is written /ɛər/ in Help:IPA/English), we can still make an educated guess on whether the underlying vowel in any case (well, most cases) is /ɛ/, /æ/ and /eɪ/ based on spelling and by analogy with words with similar phonemic makeup. Here, it certainly isn't /ɛ/ because an orthographic ⟨a⟩ before a single intervocalic ⟨r⟩ is very rarely /ɛ/ in English English. In fact, the only case of that that I'm aware of is the adverbial suffix "-arily", which may be pronounced /-ˈɛrəli/ if the primary stress is shifter to "-ar-" (as in "necessarily" /ˌnɛsəˈsɛrəli/). The only stressed form is /-ˈɛrəli/, */-ˈærəli/ and */-ˈɛərəli/ do not occur (at least in RP, I'm pretty sure that I've heard the /-ˈɛərəli/ in English English).
So really, the only possibilities in this case are /ær/ and /ɛər/. The name "Marie" can be pronounced /məˈriː/, /ˈmɑːri/ and /ˈmæri/. In AmE, the first variant is used, whereas in BrE it's only preferred, with /ˈmɑːri/ and /ˈmæri/ being possible (though probably less used) alternatives. I think it's pretty safe to assume that Brits would perceive this name to be "Marie" + unstressed "mont" (as in "Claremont", "Piedmont" etc.). We only need to clarify that this "Marie" is /ˈmæri/, with initial stress and /æ/. When I check the pronunciation dictionaries that I own, the majority of words that start with stressed "mari" are pronounced /ˈmæri(...)/, not /ˈmɛəri(...)/ (let alone /ˈmɛri(...)/, which isn't possible for this spelling in BrE). Some examples of that include "Marienbad", "marigold", "Marilyn" and "Mario". See Longman Pronunciation Dictionary (3rd ed.), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary (18th ed.) and the Routledge Dictionary of Pronunciation for Current English (2nd ed.) for more information.
I'm pretty sure that this name is pronounced MARRY-mont (MARR-ee-mont /ˈmærimɒnt/) and not MARY-mont (MARE-ee-mont /ˈmɛərimɒnt/) and it's definitely not MERRY-mont (MERR-ee-mont /ˈmɛrimɒnt/). Can you perceive any difference between these three (or at least the first one vs. the second and last one?)
@Dbfirs: What's your take on this? Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 21:03, 23 May 2019 (UTC)
Well, "Maryland" has an alternative (secondary) variant /ˈmɛrɪlənd/ in RP. Then again, "Mary" is always different from "Marie" in RP. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 21:17, 23 May 2019 (UTC)
I'll be honest, I'm not going to read this entire wall-of-text, which seems to venture off into WP:OR. The rules of pronunciation are often ignored in place names and this is a perfect example. The town is named after Mary Emery, and it is therefore pronounced like the name Mary. This is fairly easily established, and "MARE ee mahnt" is a reasonable representation of how it is generally said by those from this area. (I grew up in Terrace Park (no room for confusion there thankfully) myself but it's the same school district and funnels into Mariemont High School) Believe me, we all got very used to people not familiar with the area pronouncing it the way you'd think it was pronounced based on spelling, but if you listen to any radio or television news from the area, they all know better and pronounce it "Mary". How exactly that translates in normal phonetic spelling may be different from the guide, since the guide was made to help broadcasters, not linguists. I also don't "speak" IPA and find it relatively useless since it is meaningless to most of our readers so I don't know if the IPA is accurate or not, but I could not be more certain about how this is properly pronounced. It's certainly not MARR-ee-mont. I get that you are trying to make it fit "the rules" but it simply doesn't, like Bexar County with a mysterious silent x in it, it flouts the rules. It would've been easier if they had not bunted and called it "Marymont" but for whatever reason they did not. this video is not exactly exciting but I would think that, being a official product of the Mariemont Preservation Society it could be still be considered a reasonable source for the pronunciation, which you can hear quite clearly several times in the first few minutes. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:35, 23 May 2019 (UTC)
@Beeblebrox: If you read my post (the wall of text you're referring to has a purpose of carefully explaining my position and you didn't have to reply right away, I wasn't edit warring) you'd see that there's not much OR there. If you have a problem with understanding IPA then head to Help:IPA/English.
Do you distinguish the stressed vowels in "merry" and "Mary" (which is probably like the vowel in "dress" or "face") from that in "marry" (which in England is the same as in "trap")? Because I already know that you pronounce "merry" and "Mary" the same. Please see Mary–marry–merry merger and [3]. In English English, the stressed vowel in "merry" is like that in "dress", the one in "Mary" also like that in "dress" but longer (as long as the one in "face", but more open [ɛː]) and the one in "marry" like that in "trap" (*not* like that in "father"). In most of North America, they all fall together to sound like the vowel in "dress" or "face" (more rarely like "trap"). This is why the distinction between MERR-ee-mont and MARY-mont is meaningless to you but *not* to milions of speakers in England, for which the vowel in MARY-mont would be considerably longer than that in MERR-ee-mont. So do you hear the difference between "merry" and "Mary" on one hand and "marry" on the other?
The purpose of transcriptions linking to Help:IPA/English isn't to show American pronunciation but to show diaphonemic pronunciation that fits multiple major dialects of English: General American, Received Pronunciation, Standard Canadian English, Australian English, etc. If that's not possible, we transcribe a pronunciation that (hopefully) fits both General American and Received Pronunciation, or just list GA and RP pronunciations separately (if that's the appropriate way to proceed). We're already doing that with the other two vowels as we transcribe them with ⟨i⟩ and ⟨ɒ⟩, not ⟨⟩ and ⟨ɑː⟩ (if we were to be consistent then we'd have to transcribe the name /ˈmɛəriːmɑːnt/. By transcribing it /ˈmɛrimɒnt/ we're already going against the source. We write the last vowel with ⟨ɒ⟩ because General American /ɑː/ spelled as ⟨o⟩ always corresponds to /ɒ/ in England. It's a regular difference. We write the middle vowel with ⟨i⟩ presumably because it's a weak (unstressed-only) /i/, rather than strong /iː/, and speakers of Southern American English, Scottish English, Northern England English and conservative Received Pronunciation would identify that vowel with /ɪ/ (as in "kit"), rather than /iː/ (as in "fleece") which would normally be the case in General American, Standard Canadian English, contemporary Received Pronunciation, Australian English, etc. That's already inconsistent and somewhat WP:OR.
Because it is hardly ever the case that a stressed orthographic ⟨a⟩ before a single intervocalic ⟨r⟩ would be pronounced with a short /ɛ/ in England, we already know that speakers of English English would choose either /ɛə/ or /æ/ for this vowel - not /ɛ/. If you can't hear the difference between these two either and they sound alike to you then I'm not sure what we're discussing anymore. The source is useless in helping us ascertain whether the stressed vowel in this name is an underlying /ɛ/, /ɛə/ or /æ/. Looking at how it's spelled, chances are it's definitely not /ɛ/ but either /ɛə/ or /æ/. I've already explained why /æ/ is more likely:
The name "Marie" can be pronounced /məˈriː/, /ˈmɑːri/ and /ˈmæri/. In AmE, the first variant is used, whereas in BrE it's only preferred, with /ˈmɑːri/ and /ˈmæri/ being possible (though probably less used) alternatives. I think it's pretty safe to assume that Brits would perceive this name to be "Marie" + unstressed "mont" (as in "Claremont", "Piedmont" etc.). We only need to clarify that this "Marie" is /ˈmæri/, with initial stress and /æ/. When I check the pronunciation dictionaries that I own, the majority of words that start with stressed "mari" are pronounced /ˈmæri(...)/, not /ˈmɛəri(...)/ (let alone /ˈmɛri(...)/, which isn't possible for this spelling in BrE). Some examples of that include "Marienbad", "marigold", "Marilyn" and "Mario". See Longman Pronunciation Dictionary (3rd ed.), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary (18th ed.) and the Routledge Dictionary of Pronunciation for Current English (2nd ed.) for more information.
This is an issue that can't be explained in a few sentences, especially if you don't understand IPA. When I write /ˈmæri/ it doesn't equal /ˈmɑːri/ nor /məˈriː/. In Britain, "Marie" and "Mary" are different names, the former has an alternative pronunciation /ˈmæri/ in addition to /məˈriː/ and /ˈmɑːri/. That /ˈmæri/ (again, a *minority* pronunciation variant that isn't the same as /məˈriː/, which is the main variant in RP and probably the only possible one in America) isn't homophonous with "Mary" /ˈmɛəri/.
The fact that Mariemont is named after Mary Emery is not necessarily proof that the underlying vowel in "Mariemont" is /ɛə/ rather than /æ/. If you don't distinguish between /ɛ/, /ɛə/ and /æ/ before /r/ then we should go with whatever Brits feel is the most natural pronunciation. The source, again, is useless in helping us to ascertain that. No person from England would think of pronouncing the stressed vowels in "Perry", "Bellaire" and "Harrisburg" alike. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 10:14, 24 May 2019 (UTC)
I don't know which pronunciation should be considered "correct" since I live thousands of miles from Mariemont, but, here in the UK, we normally regard the "correct" pronunciation to be that used by educated (non-dialect) speakers in the locality of the place name. Dbfirs 08:08, 24 May 2019 (UTC)
@Dbfirs: Most Americans are unable to distinguish between the stressed vowels in "merry", "marry" and "Mary". Beeblebrox himself is unable to at least hear the difference between "merry" and "Mary", and most probably also between those and "marry". Let me ask it like this: if you saw this name, you knew that it's stressed on the first syllable and that its phonemic makeup is basically /ˈmVrimɒnt/ (whatever the stressed vowel is), what would be your guess? /ˈmærimɒnt/ or /ˈmɛərimɒnt/? I don't think that you'd think of saying it like /ˈmɛrimɒnt/.
Would it be more likely /ˈmærimɒnt/ because the majority of words that start with stressed "mari" (like "Marienbad", "marigold", "Marilyn" and "Mario") are pronounced /ˈmæri(...)/ and because the name "Marie" can be pronounced /ˈmæri/? Or would you choose /ˈmɛərimɒnt/ (or even /ˈmɛrimɒnt/) after all? Which version feels the most natural to you? Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 10:14, 24 May 2019 (UTC)
Here in the UK, we usually pronounce "Marie" as /məˈriː/ with the stress on the second syllable, so we would assume that the place in Ohio was /məˈriːmont/ or possibly /ˈmærimɒnt/. I would only pronounce it /ˈmɛərimɒnt/ if I knew that it came from Mary, but since it does, that would be the pronunciation in British English. Dbfirs 13:52, 24 May 2019 (UTC)
@Dbfirs: Ok, that's a satisfactory explanation. The source is correct then in transcribing the stressed syllable as "MARE", even though this correctness is merely accidental. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 16:31, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

"originally all-white/not inexpensive" edit war

Unfortunate that the person who wanted this removed chose to edit war and resort to personal insults instead of discussing this. In the interest of preventing further edit warring a discussion seems in order. I added the content about it not being as inexpensive as planned, and I'm quite certain the source cited backs that up. I checked the part about it being all white and the source cited also backs that up. We're not expressing an opinion on the rights and wrongs here, just reporting the facts as established by reliable sources, and this all seems properly cited to my eye. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:46, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Did you ever think the "source" was just making it up? Mariemont wasn't incorporated so had no government or ability to be a sundown town. The "source" (2006) claims the school is all white. I was there from 1977 to 1984 and had black classmates. The school district has never just served Mariemont and has always been affordable to blacks. And the "source" is choosing to ignore the area as a whole to push his politics. Next to Mariemont is Madisonville, a historic black community predating Mariemont and with it's own schools. Blacks have always preferred to choose living there than in just as affordable neighboring communities served by the Mariemont system. This may come as a shocker to you, but blacks have free will too. Chronos45227 (talk) 07:34, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
I grew up in Terrace Park and graduated from MHS, so I know perfectly well what it was like there, (in fact, given the time frame you mention you almost certainly went to school with my older cousin who stayed with us for a while.) but our own opinions and observations are meaningless here. What matters is what is already written in relaible sources. The claim in the article about Mariemont being exclusively white is about Mariemont when it was founded, in 1923, when outright institutional racism was common and indeed fairly widely accepted, as opposed to the 70's and 80's when you and I were in school there. The book was written by noted historian and author James W. Loewen, so no, I don't think he just made it up. The part about rents being higher than expected is sourced to "Cincinnati, The Queen City, Bicentennial Edition",published by the Cincinnati Historical Society, so again, a pretty solid source. The other data about race is sourced to the census bureau, generally considered the gold standard for demographic data of this nature. This is how things work on Wikipedia, we go by what the sources say. It isn't a value judgement on current or former residents of the area, it's simply an established fact that Mariemont, Terrace Park, and Fairfax are all between 95-98% white people. (as to Madisonville, it is indeed much, much older, and was incorporated into Cincinnati in 1911, so kids there would go to Cincinnati public schools) Beeblebrox (talk) 20:55, 1 April 2022 (UTC)