The following is an excerpt from Melanie Notkin's national bestseller SAVVY AUNTIE: The Ultimate Guide for Cool Aunts, Great-Aunts, Godmothers, and All Women Who Love Kids.


If you're an aunt, or may become one, you’re probably dying to know, once and for all, the proper way to pronounce the word (as well as its savvier corollary, auntie). Should it sound like the insect that gets in your pants (phonetic spelling 'ant)? Or are you supposed to do that Britspeak thing: ahnt (phonetic spelling änt)? Well, just like you and your niece or nephew, it’s all relative.

“‘Aunt’ belongs to a set of words, including ‘ask,’ ‘grass,’ ‘laugh’ and ‘dance,’ which are pronounced änt in many accents of British English and 'ant in most accents of American English,” explains Jon Herring, a researcher of British accents and dialects for the British Library (and a proud uncle!). “Linguists call this ‘the BATH vowel.’ Both pronunciations of ‘aunt’ are equally acceptable, as they are for all BATH words like ‘ask’ and ‘dance,’ etc. As a geeky linguist, I have to say that there is not a definitive, correct pronunciation.”

The two pronunciations may be equally accepted in academic circles, but among Americans, one is clearly more popular. A study done at the University of Wisconsin found that three-quarters of the US population says 'ant. Of the remaining Americans who prefer änt, most are concentrated along the coast of New England. This particular vowel pronunciation has even been dubbed “the New England broad a,” described by Dictionary.com as “having a quality between the [a] of hat and the [ah] of car.” Eastern Virginia is another area populated with änt-sayers. Why those two specific regions? Because änt “is most common in the areas that maintained the closest cultural ties with England after the änt pronunciation developed there.”

Believe it or not, what we consider to be the American pronunciation of aunt was actually its original pronunciation in England centuries ago—and even today, some British dialects still use the 'ant pronunciation. Herring notes that “it is generally accepted that the 'ant version was the original pronunciation, which over time developed into the änt version that you now get in the south of England. Northern speakers will still usually say something similar but not identical to the American 'ant.”

I say, use whichever you want . . .  or wahnt.

I chose to call my website and book Savvy Auntie over Savvy Aunt simply because I’m referred to as “Auntie” by my nephew and nieces. All of my aunts are “Aunties,” too. In my book, and all my content online and offline, I choose to stick with the phrase “nieces and nephews”—though I applaud the creative auntie who combines them into niecephews, nephlings or nephlets—for one simple reason: I would never want to be referred to as one of the aunticles. Or even worse, be dubbed an unclaunt.

Image: Blend Images
Published: August 31, 2016