is pronounced , homophonous with codeine. This pronunciation is otherwise incorrect. Conditioned /æ/ raising (especially before and ): The raising of the or vowel occurs in specific environments that vary widely from region to region but most commonly before and . With most American speakers for whom the phoneme operates under a somewhat-continuous system, has both a tense and a lax allophone (with a kind of "continuum" of possible sounds between both extremes, rather than a definitive split). In those accents, is overall realized before nasal stops as tenser (approximately ), while other environments are laxer (approximately the standard ); for example, note the vowel sound in for mass, but for man). In the following audio clip, the first pronunciation is the tensed one for the word camp, much more common in American English than the second . In some American accents, however, specifically those from Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York City, and are indeed entirely-separate (or "split") phonemes, for example, in planet vs. plan it . They are called Mid-Atlantic split-a systems. The vowels move in the opposite direction (high and forward) in the mouth compared to the backed Standard British "broad a", but both a systems are probably related phonologically, if not phonetically since a British-like phenomenon occurs among some older speakers of the eastern New England (Boston) area for whom changes to before alone or when preceded by a homorganic nasal. "Short o" before r before a vowel: In typical North American accents (both U.S. and Canada), the historical sequence (a short o sound followed by r and then another vowel, as in orange, forest, moral, and warrant) is realized as , thus further merging with the already-merged (horse–hoarse) set. In the U.S., a small number of words (namely, tomow, sy, sow, bow, and mow) usually contain the sound instead and thus merge with the set (thus, sorry and sari become homophones, both rhyming with starry). Some mergers found in most varieties of both American and British English include the following: Horse–hoarse merger: This merger makes the vowels and before homophones, with homophonous pairs like horse/hoarse, corps/core, for/four, morning/mourning, war/wore, etc. homophones. Many older varieties of American English still keep the sets of words distinct, particularly in the extreme Northeast, the South (especially along the Gulf Coast), and the central Midlands, but the merger is evidently spreading and younger Americans rarely show the distinction. Wine–whine merger: This