I live in New Orleans and am a black Creole. My mother was a high school English teacher and always said, "Ants walk on the ground. Your father's sister is your "Ont". I've looked it up and for some reason a majority of American speakers use the ant pronunciation. I taught my son to say "ont" and always feel it sounds better and cannot be confused with the insect. Plus I believe it has something to do with British influence in the colonies. Though this was French, Spanish colony, there was the Carib connection and I'm sure New Orleans had many British settlers and planters. And of course we had a large immigrant population from Ireland mid-century around the Civil War. In combination with Italians and Germans, who knows how it happened. But it does seem to be more prevalent in the black population.

I also grew up saying "draw a bath," which of course means draw water up out of a well. There were no wells in New Orleans to draw anything from in my childhood, but what a holdover! Two hundred years! And the French " I'm making groceries, a chicken, a dress..." From Faire de cuisine, faire de whatever, are direct translations from French to English. Franglais. I think there are so many crossovers down here, that's what happened.