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Vowel 16: Diphthong /eɪ/
One of two diphthongs which glide towards /ɪ/, for /eɪ/ the tongue starts at the position for the vowel /e/ and glides towards /ɪ/.
/eɪ/ is the name of the letter 'A'.
The archetypal spelling of /eɪ/ is so-called 'long A' - 'a' plus a single consonant plus the 'magic e' at the end of the word, as in 'make'.
Examples of /eɪ/:
Spelt 'a' plus a single consonant plus 'e': 'make, gate, late, bake, case, pace, face, fame, fate', and many, many more.
Less common is 'a' plus one consonant plus another vowel. Examples are 'radio', 'favourite'.
Other very common spellings are 'ai' in the middle of a word, as in 'rain' and 'paid', and 'ay' at the end of a word: 'hay, day, say, may, ray', and again many, many more.
'Says' in standard RP is /sez/, never /seɪz/ and 'said' is /sed/, not /seɪd/.
Other spellings of /eɪ/ include:
'ea' as in 'great, break'
'ei' in the middle of a word as in 'veil'
'eigh' as in 'eight', 'weigh' and 'weight', 'freight', 'neigh', and 'neighbour'
'aigh' in the one word 'straight' only, which is homophonous with 'strait', meaning 'narrow'
'ey' at the end of a word: 'they, grey, whey'
'ae' as in 'sundae', which is a homophone of 'Sunday', 'Gaelic', 'reggae', 'vertebrae', and 'Disraeli'.
Practice sentences:
James the aged bricklayer betrayed his laziness one day.
The lame castaways made a fatal mistake.
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