It's "sodder", not "soLder", damnit! (for us USAians)

[IanB]

In General American English (the mainstream dialect), dad and dead have decidedly different vowels, while ferry and fairy generally have the same vowel -- the exact one used in the video you linked. That is precisely how most Americans pronounce both ferry and fairy. (Just as Analog Kid said.)

Well, in the earlier video that prompted my "fairy" comment, I heard "fairy".

In this second video, I hear "ferry" (albeit with an American accent).

I will have to ask lots of people around me to say the two words and see what I find.

Also, it's not necessarily about the sound of the vowel, but the length of the vowel. In ferry it is short, but in fairy it is longer. I expect fairy to sound like "f" followed by "air" followed by "ee".

[IanB]

In General American English (the mainstream dialect), dad and dead have decidedly different vowels

There's an accent I commonly hear, where the "a" vowel in words like dad and Dan gets lengthened and turned into a diphthong with a glide, so that Dan starts to sound like "Day-enn" and dad like "day-edd". In that accent, I feel that dead would also sound like "day-edd". But I can't be sure about that.

[Analog Kid]

In General American English (the mainstream dialect), dad and dead have decidedly different vowels

There's an accent I commonly hear, where the "a" vowel in words like dad and Dan gets lengthened and turned into a diphthong with a glide, so that Dan starts to sound like "Day-enn" and dad like "day-edd". In that accent, I feel that dead would also sound like "day-edd". But I can't be sure about that.

I think you may be overthinking some of this and hearing distinctions without a difference.
The difference, in American spoken English, between "fairy" and "ferry" is too slight to be distinct pronunciations. They're practically homophones.

[Andy Chee]

In General American English (the mainstream dialect), dad and dead have decidedly different vowels

There's an accent I commonly hear, where the "a" vowel in words like dad and Dan gets lengthened and turned into a diphthong with a glide, so that Dan starts to sound like "Day-enn" and dad like "day-edd". In that accent, I feel that dead would also sound like "day-edd". But I can't be sure about that.

I think you may be overthinking some of this and hearing distinctions without a difference.
The difference, in American spoken English, between "fairy" and "ferry" is too slight to be distinct pronunciations. They're practically homophones.

They're nothing like homophones.

"fairy" begins with a sound similar to "fan"

"ferry" begins with a sound similar to "federal"

My gripe is with Greg and Craig.  For reference, this occurs in the family breakfast scene in the movie Back to the Future part one (after Marty returns to 1985).  And for a more recent example, the voiceover opening NBC Mornings with "Samantha Guthrie and Craig Melvin" I swear it sounds like Greg Melvin!

[zike]

I think you may be overthinking some of this and hearing distinctions without a difference.
The difference, in American spoken English, between "fairy" and "ferry" is too slight to be distinct pronunciations. They're practically homophones.

They are completely distinct to my ear. One rhymes with 'Mary' or 'airy',  the other 'Jerry' or 'merry'. Here folks would snicker at hearing "fairy boat." Where did you grow up?

[IanB]

They are completely distinct to my ear. One rhymes with 'Mary' or 'airy',  the other 'Jerry' or 'merry'. Here folks would snicker at hearing "fairy boat." Where did you grow up?

I guess a large swathe of the USA has the Mary/marry/merry merger, where all three words sound the same.

[Analog Kid]

I think you may be overthinking some of this and hearing distinctions without a difference.
The difference, in American spoken English, between "fairy" and "ferry" is too slight to be distinct pronunciations. They're practically homophones.

They are completely distinct to my ear. One rhymes with 'Mary' or 'airy',  the other 'Jerry' or 'merry'. Here folks would snicker at hearing "fairy boat." Where did you grow up?

Sorry, to me, and to my ears all English speakers here I've ever listened to, those are all homophones.

Grew up in the Midwest, Illinois. You?

[Aldo22]

Just like “dad” and “dead” in English.
No difference.

Um, that's wrong: they're two quite distinct pronunciations. At least in U.S. English.

That's true for an English speaker—the point was that these words sound the same when a German (DE-DE) says them.

[tooki]

In General American English (the mainstream dialect), dad and dead have decidedly different vowels

There's an accent I commonly hear, where the "a" vowel in words like dad and Dan gets lengthened and turned into a diphthong with a glide, so that Dan starts to sound like "Day-enn" and dad like "day-edd". In that accent, I feel that dead would also sound like "day-edd". But I can't be sure about that.

Having lived in North Carolina as a kid, I know exactly the feature you are talking about.

But the initial vowel is different, so dad and dead sound different.

In contrast, those dialects often have a complete merger of the short I and short e, though this too gets diphthongized (so “pin” and “pen” are pronounced absolutely identically, and both sound almost like peein’ 😂).

In 3rd grade, we had a spelling test. (A hopelessly unchallenging one at that…) The teacher read the next word: pin/pen. Without thinking about it, she realized the ambiguity in her dialect and blurted out “that’s pin p-i-n, not pen p-e-n.” Followed a moment later by “AW, SHOOT!” 🤣

[tooki]

In General American English (the mainstream dialect), dad and dead have decidedly different vowels

There's an accent I commonly hear, where the "a" vowel in words like dad and Dan gets lengthened and turned into a diphthong with a glide, so that Dan starts to sound like "Day-enn" and dad like "day-edd". In that accent, I feel that dead would also sound like "day-edd". But I can't be sure about that.

I think you may be overthinking some of this and hearing distinctions without a difference.
The difference, in American spoken English, between "fairy" and "ferry" is too slight to be distinct pronunciations. They're practically homophones.

They're nothing like homophones.

"fairy" begins with a sound similar to "fan"

"ferry" begins with a sound similar to "federal"

My gripe is with Greg and Craig.  For reference, this occurs in the family breakfast scene in the movie Back to the Future part one (after Marty returns to 1985).  And for a more recent example, the voiceover opening NBC Mornings with "Samantha Guthrie and Craig Melvin" I swear it sounds like Greg Melvin!

Ferry and fairy are homophones in General American English, which is what they were discussing. Neither ferry nor fairy starts with the vowel in fan or federal, as used in American English.

Vowel shifts are among the most core differences between dialects of English.

[zike]

Sorry, to me, and to my ears all English speakers here I've ever listened to, those are all homophones.

Grew up in the Midwest, Illinois. You?

Fascinating!

Long Island, NY. But since my teens I've lived/worked in upstate NY, NJ, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Florida, Louisiana, California, and Washington state, and never found occasion to snicker. Guess I totally skipped the whole middle of the country, my bad. 

[Gerhard_dk4xp]

It is also completely strange to German speakers how you could possibly mix up "ie" and "ei", these are completely different sounds here. How often do I have to read "Wein bridge" in this forum?

Or Seimens

[Gerhard_dk4xp]

 ENGLISH IS TOUGH STUFF
          ======================

         Dearest creature in creation,
         Study English pronunciation.
         I will teach you in my verse
         Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
         I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
         Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
         Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
         So shall I!  Oh hear my prayer.

         Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
         Dies and diet, lord and word,
         Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
         (Mind the latter, how it's written.)
         Now I surely will not plague you
         With such words as plaque and ague.
         But be careful how you speak:
         Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
         Cloven, oven, how and low,
         Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

         Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
         Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
         Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
         Exiles, similes, and reviles;
         Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
         Solar, mica, war and far;
         One, anemone, Balmoral,
         Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
         Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
         Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

         Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
         Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
         Blood and flood are not like food,
         Nor is mould like should and would.
         Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
         Toward, to forward, to reward.
         And your pronunciation's OK
         When you correctly say croquet,
         Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
         Friend and fiend, alive and live.

         Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
         And enamour rhyme with hammer.
         River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
         Doll and roll and some and home.
         Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
         Neither does devour with clangour.
         Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
         Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
         Shoes, goes, does.  Now first say finger,
         And then singer, ginger, linger,
         Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
         Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

         Query does not rhyme with very,
         Nor does fury sound like bury.
         Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
         Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
         Though the differences seem little,
         We say actual but victual.
         Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
         Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
         Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
         Dull, bull, and George ate late.
         Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
         Science, conscience, scientific.

         Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
         Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
         We say hallowed, but allowed,
         People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
         Mark the differences, moreover,
         Between mover, cover, clover;
         Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
         Chalice, but police and lice;
         Camel, constable, unstable,
         Principle, disciple, label.

         Petal, panel, and canal,
         Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
         Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
         Senator, spectator, mayor.
         Tour, but our and succour, four.
         Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
         Sea, idea, Korea, area,
         Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
         Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
         Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

         Compare alien with Italian,
         Dandelion and battalion.
         Sally with ally, yea, ye,
         Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
         Say aver, but ever, fever,
         Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
         Heron, granary, canary.
         Crevice and device and aerie.

         Face, but preface, not efface.
         Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
         Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
         Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
         Ear, but earn and wear and tear
         Do not rhyme with here but ere.
         Seven is right, but so is even,
         Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
         Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
         Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

         Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!
         Is a paling stout and spikey?
         Won't it make you lose your wits,
         Writing groats and saying grits?
         It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
         Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
         Islington and Isle of Wight,
         Housewife, verdict and indict.

         Finally, which rhymes with enough --
         Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
         Hiccough has the sound of cup.
         My advice is to give up!!!


                            -- Author Unknown

[TimFox]

There is another poem from grade school that ends “I hit him with a rough”.
Pronounced “rock”.

[tooki]

ENGLISH IS TOUGH STUFF
          ======================

         Dearest creature in creation,
         Study English pronunciation.
         I will teach you in my verse
         Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
         I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
…
         Finally, which rhymes with enough --
         Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
         Hiccough has the sound of cup.
         My advice is to give up!!!


                            -- Author Unknown

The author isn’t unknown! It’s the Dutch (!) writer Gerard Nolst Trenité.

See https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Ruize-rijmen/De_Chaos for the full text with original formatting and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chaos for more info.

[Ranayna]

My best English teacher in highschool had studied at Tninity College Dubin for several years.

Another "tell" that someone is German, or at least German speaking/writing:
Jamming together words like "high school" (that's called agglomeration, init?).

The other way around is true as well
Needlessly inserted spaces into compound nouns are sometimes called "Deppenleerzeichen", "idiot's spaces"
German, at least in some social groups, has become very "anglicised". I can't exempt myself there, since most of my written communication is in english nowadays.

Any examples?

There would be too many
As you may know, in german you can chain nouns almost at will, and that creates a new word, without spaces.
But if you are used a lot to english, spaces tend to slip in.

The above "Deppenleerzeichen" is a good example. "Deppen Leerzeichen" would be wrong. Of course it's understood, and mostly only nitpickers actually complain.

[Analog Kid]

ENGLISH IS TOUGH STUFF
          ======================

         Dearest creature in creation,
         Study English pronunciation.
         I will teach you in my verse
         Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
         I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
         Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
         Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
         So shall I!  Oh hear my prayer.

[snip rest of ditty]

Then there's "ghoti". Y'all know what I'm referring to, yes?

[TimFox]

Phonetic spelling of fish.
Similarly, comparing singular “woman” to plural “women”:
The first vowel is spelled the same, but pronounced differently.
The second vowel is spelled differently, but pronounced the same.

[IanB]

Similarly, comparing singular “woman” to plural “women”:
The second vowel is spelled differently, but pronounced the same.

Huh?

[TimFox]

Similarly, comparing singular “woman” to plural “women”:
The second vowel is spelled differently, but pronounced the same.

Huh?

In “woman”, the second vowel is “a”.  In “women”, the second vowel is “e”.  They are pronounced differently.  Oops.  The point about the first vowel is correct.

I was up late last night and misremembered the full statement.

[TimFox]

I already corrected it.

[Zero999]

One of the reasons for English's awkward spellings is the fact the phonology has changed, yet the spellings haven't.


https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Phonological_history_of_English_close_back_vowels

I advocate doing away with standard spelling and spelling everything phonetically. Yes, this would result in different speakers spelling things differently, but I know when a Northerner is referring to a male rabbit or something one reads, when they say book, by the context. For those who aren't aware, north of a certain point in England and in most of Ireland, the U sound in cut, done, but etc. is pronounced as the U sound in put, cook, wood etc.

[IanB]

I advocate doing away with standard spelling and spelling everything phonetically.

So, let's not go there:

A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling

For example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be dropped to be replased either by "k" or "s," and likewise "x" would no longer be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which "c" would be retained would be the "ch" formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2 might reform "w" spelling, so that "which" and "one" would take the same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish "y" replasing it with "i" and Iear 4 might fiks the "g/j" anomali wonse and for all.

Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear with iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and iears 6-12 or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants. Bai iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi ridandant letez "c," "y" and "x"--bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez--tu riplais "ch," "sh," and "th" rispektivli.

Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld.

[TimFox]

I do not speak or read Chinese at all, but my understanding of the history of Chinese writing is that the same set of characters would cover a wide range of spoken language within the large area of China, so that literature and written law (for example) did not need translation, but would be pronounced quite differently in different parts of the country.
Current practice is to standardize on the "Mandarin" language of the Beijing area.

[Zero999]

I advocate doing away with standard spelling and spelling everything phonetically.

So, let's not go there:

A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling

For example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be dropped to be replased either by "k" or "s," and likewise "x" would no longer be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which "c" would be retained would be the "ch" formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2 might reform "w" spelling, so that "which" and "one" would take the same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish "y" replasing it with "i" and Iear 4 might fiks the "g/j" anomali wonse and for all.

Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear with iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and iears 6-12 or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants. Bai iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi ridandant letez "c," "y" and "x"--bai now jast a memori in the maindz ov ould doderez--tu riplais "ch," "sh," and "th" rispektivli.

Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld.

That iz a bit xtreem. It iz prit-ee obvius wot I'm rite-ing, even tho I'm speling thi-s fo-net-ic-lee. The problem iz sir-tin wurds mite difer in y-or axe-nt to mine. I mite say b-ah-th and u mite say ba-th and I mite say t-you-be and you mite say too-b.