the awful American language (apologies to Mark Twain)

Im Sommer 2016 war JoAnn aus Wisconsin die Teilnehmerin mit der längsten Anreise. In diesem Jahr sang der Chor Aaron Copland's Stück 'Have Mercy on us' und bot bereits in den Proben Gelegenheit, die Aussprache des englischen Textes zu diskutieren. Wenige Tage nach der SCIW erreichte uns eine Mail aus den Vereinigten Staaten...

Dear Thomas, Katharina R, etc. and any who wondered about the pronunciation of "bear" in Copland's "Have Mercy on us,"

How much does a native speaker know about his/her own language, anyway?  Challenged to verify that "bear" could also be pronounced "beer," I was stumped because my brain wasn't working in English.

Now, preparing to return home, I can do a dopeslap and provide more examples than anyone could want --

beard (Bart) is pronounced "beerd," as are: shear (to cut, not to be confused with "sheer" -- same pronunciation -- to be translucent), ear, hear (both IN the Copland, no less!), mean (meinen, böse), knead (kneten)...

To confuse the poor learner(!), there is also, with "r:" heard (also herd), earn, yearn, etc.

So why not "bear = beer"?  Because it's "bear = bare"?? I swear I don't know!  Lucky me, I got to learn it early enough not to have to think about it.

Finally, the example that creates another "rule:" "sweatshirt" pronounced correctly is "swettshurrt" and neither "sweetshirt" nor "swäätshirt".

Mit Abschiedszwinkern,    JoAnn