again
against
creme fraiche
said
saith
9 responses to “ai as in said”
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In the ai as in said list, I don’t know if the Australian pronunciation is the same, but in the states we would also include curtain, certain, fountain, captain, and mountain in this list. Your website is so helpful!
Thanks! I have mountain, fountain, captain, curtain, etc listed under “Unstressed vowel” – see https://www.spelfabet.com.au/spelling-lists/sorted-by-sound/unstressed-vowel/ai-as-in-portrait – but in teaching the spelling of these words I encourage kids to use their “Spelling Voice” to pronounce the ai as in rain, to help themselves remember the spelling.
Interesting! I am thinking this would be a dialect thing. To be more specific, in Philadelphia we pronounce those words you mentioned with a short i for the ai spelling. That is based on our dialect or accent. I am sure that it other parts of the state and country, people pronounce ai in those words with a short e sound. This is all fascinating!
said, plaid æ , again, against, air, airplane.
I pronounce “plaid” to rhyme with “dad”, not “said” and “red”, so I classify it with “plait” as a funny spelling of /a/ as in cat. In my non-rhotic accent the word “air” is a diphthong (/e/ plus schwa) so for spelling purposes I count it as a separate vowel with multiple spellings, as in hair, care, bear, there and their.
Your right. Thanks for the correction.
I’m from Wisconsin. I believe the list: fountain, mountain, curtain are short e when spoken brightly , positively. But when tired, frustrated or upset, they would be pronounced short i. In the case of hair, air, bear…. the Spelling would be called a diphthong because it is two letters, but the sound isn’t schwa. It’s just a short e. All of these sound /spelling elements are either auditory imprints or sight imprints, respectively. They could be referred to as ‘mirrors’. Sound/spelling mirrors.
Vinaigrette could be considered /e/ as in said, or an unstressed vowel – but because it is a vowel team, I like comparing it to the /e/ in said.
Hi Jeannie, the Macquarie dictionary says the ‘ai’ in ‘vinaigrette’ is unstressed, like the ‘ai’ in ‘mountain’,’captain’, ‘portrait’ and lots of other words, I have a list here: https://www.spelfabet.com.au/spelling-lists/sorted-by-sound/unstressed-vowel/ai-as-in-portrait. I like to ‘upgrade’ this in my spelling voice to the /ae/ sound in ‘rain’ because that’s the main spelling represented by those letters, but if you think it’s more like an /e/ sound then I guess ‘said’ would work, I encourage children to say this word as it would have been said (‘sayed’) in the Olden Days to help them remember the spelling, we conjugate it as ‘I say’, ‘she says’ and ‘yesterday he said’ all with the /ae/ sound. But in your spelling voice you can do what you like to help you remember spellings.