In article >,
Puester > wrote:

> cybercat wrote:
> > "Default User" > wrote in message
> > ...
....

> >>> Your AHNT is a parent's sibling. An ANT is an unwelcome picnic
> >>> companion.

> >> Maybe in your idiolect, but for most people in my region they are
> >> pronounced the same.

> > In my experience, it has always been really poor African Americans
> > or rural mountain poor whites who engage in this affectation.

> You must not get out much.

Indeed. It is not an "affectation" to pronounce words the way you
learned them, and the way everyone around you pronounces them. For
the word "aunt", it is in fact the case that pretty much everyone
in the "Midwest" (extending westward through the plains belt to
include Kansas & Nebraska, and I presume the Dakotas) pronounces
"ant" and "aunt" identically. There are _some_ parts of the US where
this identity does not hold; I don't know off-hand where those might
be, as I have never encountered them (despite having lived in Kansas,
Nebraska, Illinois, California and New York, and traveled extensively
in adjacent regions...)

For me, it _would_ be an affectation to pronounce "ant" and "aunt"
differently. Your mileage may vary...