Slightly OT, but can you all, in your various area accents, hear a difference between "grade 'A'" and "gray day?"
'Gray day' vs. 'Grade A'
<<Slightly OT, but can you all, in your various area accents, hear a difference between "grade 'A'" and "gray day?">>
It's completely off topic. But yes, in my accent - and pretty much any North American accent - there's an appreciable difference because the /d/ in "grade A" undergoes flapping, whereas the /d/ in "gray day" does not:
grade A [%gr\eI4 "eI]
gray day [%gr\eI "deI]
But even in a non-North American accent that didn't have allophonic flapping, I'm certain that the difference would still be audible.
Regarding "flaccid": the archaic or traditional pronunciation was /"fl{ksId/, but I think /"fl{sId/ is now predominant in all dialects. The Cambridge Online Dictionary only gives the latter.
It's completely off topic. But yes, in my accent - and pretty much any North American accent - there's an appreciable difference because the /d/ in "grade A" undergoes flapping, whereas the /d/ in "gray day" does not:
grade A [%gr\eI4 "eI]
gray day [%gr\eI "deI]
But even in a non-North American accent that didn't have allophonic flapping, I'm certain that the difference would still be audible.
Regarding "flaccid": the archaic or traditional pronunciation was /"fl{ksId/, but I think /"fl{sId/ is now predominant in all dialects. The Cambridge Online Dictionary only gives the latter.
Hmm. I regularly have flapping like that before stressed vowels. Would you have flapping for /t/ in a similar position?
Pretty much what I expected. In southern American English, the "d" elides into the "a" in "day." Over the years, I've asked a number of English speakers in this region if they could discern a difference and none of them have been able. So it's a regionalism...
I don't believe I pronounce them differently (Texan, lived in California for four years, just moved to Louisiana).
I'm in Huntsville (extreme north) Alabama. Our accents, unless we modify them, would be very close...