Aunt -- "awnt" or "ant"

Ant I say!

I’m white and Midwestern, so I say ant.

Awnt -from New England.

Anty

[quote] Awnt -from New England.

I see that you left the white as implied by the region

Ahnt, from Boston

R6 took the words out of my mouth. It’s definitely not “ant”, that is for a different set. There’s also no W in the pronunciation.

This called for a poll, OP.

Ant, but I’m southern, and sometimes I give words a dubious accent.

Brits say 'Arnt.'

Ant.

Ont.

Ant.

Awnt, I'm from CT.

Though I was raised by jackals, I use the elongated pronunciation.

American English has too many harsh nasal sounds to choose to say "ant." And you can't say "Aunt Agatha" to good effect if it's "Ant Agatha."

Depends if you are a Susan or a Sharon

Ant, like Ass.

Ant. White So Cal

Watch it, sucka!

Ahnt, in Maine. Awnt is more Minnesota i think. Ant is an insect.

If you understand it - then it isn't wrong.

My pronunciation is sort of halfway between “ahnt” (Bostonian born and raised) and “ant” (most of America)

If you're in Mayberry it's "Aint".

Tia

Neither; I say "ahnt."

R5 Black Americans in every part of the Us say awnt.

Fuck off

My Cambridge mom used to say; my sister doesn’t crawl on the grass! So it’s awnt/ahnt (same thing) and never ant.

It's pronounced Beloved Cunt.

Ant, like Aunt Bee

But it’s Aint Bee

It’s Beaver!

Tsk tsk tsk

I’ve always pronounced it as ant, but I deliberately pronounce it as awnt in the presence of my racist sister & our niece. I also believe it’s the correct pronunciation.

R24 which is clearly what OP was going for when they wrote “awnt.” Don’t be the pedant everyone hates—not a good look.

I say Ant. I’m from New Jersey. My cousins moved from here to Darien. It was always a little hilarious watching them trying to decide how to address my mother.

They were all laughing at you, from CT.

Ant. White. Northern California

Stanford ant.

Berkeley ahnt.

Daunt. Flaunt. Gaunt. Haunt. Jaunt. Taunt.

Dant glant jant …ain’t

Awnt or Awntie. Grew up in NC.

It's "Aunt Jemima" not "Ahnt Jemima"!

We’re not in Kansas anymore. …we never were!

We say Awnt pronounced like taunt. But we also say Ant Jemimah. And Aint Bee.

I ain’t give a shit.

Awnt and Ahnt are different.

Awnt, from Minnesota.

Ants are tiny insects that work together to carry heavy objects, and build hills

It’s Ant Jemima

R45 catch a clue. On the DL, in this thread, awnt was clearly meant to be in opposition to ant…it’s the only reasonable conclusion: inthis discussion awnt is seen as being the same as ahnt.

Don't be a dick.

R47 ironic isn’t it—only white thrash say ant. LOL.

And trash 🤠

Antee

It’s ant with a very long A.

I’m from the southern Chicago suburbs.

[quote]Awnt -from New England.

Also from New England, but where it's Ahhnt, not Awnt.

Ahnt was not an option in the thread title, nitpickers.

I got aunts in my paunts!!!

Then the thread title is flawed, R54.

Ant

Ohnt (not awnt, not ahnt, most certainly not any)

(White, western mass)

Ant. Born and raised in Ottawa, Canada.

High five, R58! Springfield here!!

Ah the ancestral area R60. Life is sometimes just a journey up route 202 with a ham and pickle salad sandwich for the road.

I think it’s the French Canadian influence since Northern Maine has a similar pronunciation.

R56 your ability to process information as presented is flawed …TBH

R61 —all the Canucks in Cambridge are laughing at you. The title’s use of awnt is consistent with the universal NE understanding that, between two possible pronunciations, ant is incorrect.

Springfield MA is a total shithole now.

Ain't - from the South

Ain't Bee says Opie needs a mother, stat!

Now? Just now?!

[quote]Springfield MA is a total shithole now.

I lived there in 1989 and it was a total shithole back then.

Springfield peaked over a 100 years ago.

Awnt is the pronunciation my Sicilian American relatives in the Hudson Valley use. It’s fuller vowel sound and takes longer to say.

It’s been a shithole for a long time R67, but the museums are still nice.

Jesus H Christ. The Op typed awnt in opposition to ant. The Op was not transcribing for linguists…it was meant to be in the same way as ahnt.

Move on.

Springfield MA was the only place I've ever been gay bashed. I was sitting in my car *across the street* from a gay bar and some drunk asshole comes up and says, "Are you gay?" Wisely, I said, "No." He said, "Good, because if you were, I'd have to rip off your head and shit down your neck." Then he banged the hood of my car and walked away.

even AI understands that aw-ah are intended to convey the same thing, in opposition to ant.

“…pronounce "aunt" with a long 'ah' or 'aw' vowel sound, like in "father," making it distinct from the insect "ant". American…”

r70 you have to remember that this is Aspielounge. Posters will seize on some trifling little bullshit thing and be laser focused on it, while the normal posters just shake our heads and go "WTF?"

[quote] “…pronounce "aunt" with a long 'ah' or 'aw' vowel sound, like in "father," making it distinct from the insect "ant". American…”

So is that the normal "fahther" pronunciation or the pretentious "fawther"?

Or posters from the Northeast hear the regional differences between Awnt, Ahnt, and Ont and people who grew up with everyone around them saying “ant” just can’t.

I didn’t grow up speaking French and can’t hear the difference between sus and sous despite French speakers telling me that they are obviously different. Ditto why native Chinese speakers can’t distinguish between L and R sounds. You lose the ability to hear the differences in sounds that aren’t distinguished between in a language you learned as a child.

The engine’s hood was bashed, not you—

O y is not a thing in America LOL

Ont is not a thing in America

Bitch

I'm biracial.

It depends on the person I'm talking to.

Awnt is not just northeastern though honestly. Down souf black people with heavy accents or southern drawls and what not say awnt.

Yes we know

R25

[quote]The engine’s hood was bashed, not you—

Bashed or bawshed?

It’s bahshed

Passta

Awnt is what social climbers say.....

Can I have a glass of wudder?

You’ll need more than a glass of warder to warsh that out.

Did you buy INsurance to protect the ruff?

Aren't. We New Englanders are a various bunch.

Southern Vermont R90?

If RFK Jr. saw this thread, he'd be doing a survey on how many of your mothers took Tylenol.

We are not, when it comes to THAT word.

Your parent’s sister, or your parent’s brother’s wife, ain’t an ant. That’s all folks.

Ozarks Hillbilly and we say ain't.

I never understood people who said "roof" like "ruff"

It's ROOF like FROOT LOOPS.

Not in KS

…my INsurance will pay out if I’m wrongg

[quote]It depends on the person I'm talking to.

For me, it depends on the aunt I'm talking about, r80.

Is there a correlation between people who say awnt and drain their pasta?

Ants eat passta

I say "ant"

[quote]Jesus H Christ. The Op typed awnt in opposition to ant. The Op was not transcribing for linguists…it was meant to be in the same way as ahnt.

Sorry, but a thread about regional pronunciations shouldn't be so sloppy as to equate "awnt" and "ahnt." And to accuse those who insist on making a distinction between the two of being "nitpickers" in such a thread is ludicrous.

There are two ways to say the word in the U.S.

One—ant—is incorrect 👻

The other— unless you’re a linguist on the spectrum editing a new Webster’s—is understood by awnt/ahnt (which is correct).

And R101 is a beyotch.

r101 is another Aspie.

It was always “ant” in TX which sounds really low class in retrospect

It was ALWAYS low class…

And then it became only blacks on tv who said “Auntie”, so I just gave up

Are you saying you’re still a bigot or now a reformed bigot?

Ant - with a soft A, like in apple, but not the British ahhnt. Standard Southern California vowel.

Would it help r101 if we just made it between those who pronounce the “u” in aunt and those who do not? What that relax you?

No, r110, but perhaps slurping my peen would.

I mean how could I resist that big pedant energy?

Awnt.

I’m also from Massachusetts.

ANT.

ANT - from Calif

An oft-told story. I grew up off a street named Lahser. My mother - & admittedly almost everyone else I knew - pronounced the street as “Lasher,” even though a nearby suburban school with Lahser in its name was pronounced as it was spelled. When as an adult I asked her why she pronounced the name of the street as she did, my mother pointed out a neighbor woman who pronounced it as spelled but discounted it because she was always “putting on airs.”

Ant.

Aunt | ant, änt

Words - & phrases - can be so bastardized by misuses, R118, that their misuses can become accepted, even the norm.

If my aunt had balls she'd be my uncle

Ant -- born and raised in NY.

Let me know if anyone wants me to start a with a poll with all 8 choices of pronunciation. I would, of course, give credit to the OP of this thread for beginning the discussion and it might make some of the thread monitors who insist on only two possible pronunciations less anxious to have non-OP mentioned possibilities no longer discussed here.

ElderLiz, if you do start a poll, please don't include all the permutations of the long A pronunciation.

^The short A, not the long A.

It's the variations of the regional pronunciations that make the topic interesting. To try to narrow it down, especially to narrow it down to only two options, defeats the whole purpose.

My former boyfriend was from the Midwest. White. He said "ant." I was raised, as an African American, to say, Ahhhnt." That was like, 40 years ago.

Southerners say "Ain't"

Def Ant

Cunt, the short U.

It is t r125 because there is no infighting between the various long A contingents. They hear the differences amongst themselves as accents, not full on mispronunciations.