Talk:Mary

This is an odd disambiguation to me -- Mary and Merry are completely distinct names. Why merge them? --Arduinna 18:03, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I have to agree - charmed as I am to find my name on a page with Merry the hobbit and Merry the human *g*, it feels weird to treat "Merry" and "Mary" as identical. They're not spelled or pronounced the same way, so maybe it would be better to have a "Merry" disambig page and a "Mary" disambig page? (Right now I can only think of Mary Watson for the latter, but there have to be tons of Mary's in fandom.)--Mary Crawford 18:06, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

I can't hear a difference when they are spoken, but I don't really have an investment in keeping them together. I'd just have to try two searches if I heard someone mention a 'Mary-or-Merry' that I wanted to find more about. --rache 18:11, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Originally, Merry was redirecting to LOTR, so that's what I was fixing. I added in the 'Mary' part because when I hear the names, they sound an aweful lot alike to me. If someone spoke to me about a character or fan names 'Mary' or 'Merry' something, I wouldn't be able to tell the difference. It may be a just-me thing, and an outlier case, but that's why I did it. --rache 18:08, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Ahh, in my dialect, they're distinct sounds. I think it's worth splitting them out -- even with some people hearing the same vowels audibly, most people will be looking for names they've seen in print somewhere, not names they've heard out loud. --Arduinna 18:25, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Go for it! I'll go back and fix the Merry page, if you want to make a start on Mary. --rache 18:33, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

I went ahead and started on both, so if you know of Marys or Merries, you can go ahead and add them. --rache 18:49, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

merry vs. mary

I say we separate Merry and Mary on two different disambig pages and add a line at the top like Are you looking for Mary? etc. There is no page for Merry, and I would never search for Mary to find the hobbit called Merry!--æthel 18:41, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Dialect Nerdery

If anybody's curious, the Mary-marry-merry merger is actually a standard way of distinguishing between accents, at least accents of American English. All three are usually distinct in Philadelphia, NYC, Boston, and outside North America. All three are the same in a lot of parts of the US (and Canada?), and some places pronounce Mary and merry (but not marry) the same. Franzeska 13:39, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

But does this matter when this whole wiki is written rather than spoken? I don't see any advantage in having them on the same disambig page.--RatCreature 00:01, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

I don't think they should be on the same page either. I just think that wikipedia link might be interesting for people who are wondering if they just pronounce things funny or what. Franzeska 01:52, 17 June 2010 (UTC)