Another "how do you say" / "what do you call this" poll

[pne]

[Poll #757711]

Comments

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

You can't spend much time learning about the phonology of American English without running into the pen/pin merger (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonological_history_of_the_high_front_vowels#Pin-pen_merger). What I find weirder is the split that comes about from æ-tensing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonological_history_of_English_short_A#.C3.A6-tensing), but I guess that's just because no one around here speaks like that.