Different pronunciations of "-ead"/"-ed"/"-aid" words?

Question

I find that American/British English dialects tend to pronounce words like "*bed*", "*red*", "*dead*", "*bred*", "*said*", etc. with the exact same vowel sound: the IPA **ɛ** vowel (- and so this question may seem a bit odd to some of you). However, where I come from (Singaporean English), there is a clear distinction in the correct pronunciation in normal spoken language, with two categories of words: 1. Pronounced with "**ɛ**", such as "br**e**d", "l**e**d", etc. 2. Pronounced like the **e** in "h**e**y" but ending sharply at he the "**e**" without the draggy "**ɪ**" sound, such as "h**ea**d", "br**ea**d", "s**ai**d", "r**e**d". (This is clearly distinct from the "**eɪ**" sound in "*braid*", "*frayed*", "*played*" etc.) For example, "*red*" or "*bed*" is much closer to "*rad*" or "*bad*" in American/British pronunciations, but that would sound completely weird here, where it is much more between "*rad*"/"*bad*" and "*raid*"/"*bayed*". (I can't seem to find the IPA for this particular sound, however, though it is very prevalent in many words) Does this distinction exist in other dialects too?

Answer 1

One of my exercises is the "Bad and Bed" exercise. To a native speaker from America or Canada, these are two clearly different sounds. But I have an exercise for these sounds because many students have trouble distinguishing between the two.

Here are some of the minimal pairs from the exercise:

bad bed

ax X

man men

band bend

sax sex

had head

pat pet

sad said

sat set

land lend

bat bet

dad dead

flash flesh

gas guess

lad led

gnat net

shall shell

gassed guessed

fad fed

marry merry

and end

ham hem

mat met

spanned spend

Answer 2

There is astonishing variety in regional, class, ethnic dialects. The same for terms and phrases.

Google "accent tag" on Youtube to find hundreds of videos that demonstrate this. Around 2002 a linguist compiled a list of questions and words that have different answers or pronunciations depending on the speaker's location and background. For example: "oil, theater, iron, salmon," and "what is the bubbly carbonated drink called?" This became viral and there were hundreds of videos made in response.

All of the different pronunciations are acceptable in their region. You can find studies online of the distribution of terms for bubbly carbonated drink. My students find this fascinating.

They are astounded by the northeastern American dialect. It drops "r" but inserts "r" at the end of words ending in "a" - so "pizza" sounds like "peetzer." It replaces "er" with "uh," so "brother" sounds like "brothuh." Google "accent tag Boston."

Here is a link to a Public Radio International article about the accent tag project: https://www.pri.org/stories/2015-07-21/accent-quiz-swept-english-speaking-world