When we were both in grad school in psychology, my then roommate used me as a guinea pig for her WAIS (IQ) testing course.  I got my IQ lowered (by 2 points, IIRC) because she asked me to define "im-payle."  Knowing she was from S. Carolina and being used to her accent, I defined "impel."  Unfortunately, she had bent over backwards to use "standard" American English pronunciation of the word "impale," so, of course, my definition was wrong.

Another time, my mom kept hearing some friends from the south talk about a beautiful "pantry."  She was terribly puzzled as to how a pantry could inspire such awe, until it finally came out that they were talking about a "pine tree."

My Texan roommate and I had a running argument about how to pronounce "o-i-l."  To me, she pronounced it as "awl."  She thought I (damnyankee that I was) was making it into two syllables.  *BG*

Genie