it. In traditional RP, the contrast between and weak is maintained; however, this may be declining among modern standard speakers of southern England, who increasingly prefer a merger, specifically with the realization . In RP, the phone , apart from being a frequent allophone of (as in foot ) in younger speakers, appears only as an allophone of (which is often centralized when it occurs as a weak vowel) and never as an allophone of , so that can only stand for "Lenin", not "Lennon" which has a lower vowel: . However, speakers may not always clearly perceive that difference, as is sometimes raised to in contact with alveolar consonants (such as the alveolar nasals in "Lennon" ). Furthermore, never participates in syllabic consonant formation, so that G-dropping in words such as fishing never yields a syllabic nasal * nor a sounded mid schwa *, with the most casual RP forms being . Both and especially were considered to be strongly non-standard in England as late as 1982. They are characteristic of e.g. cockney, which otherwise does not feature the weak vowel merger (though can be centralized to as in RP, so that and are distinct possibilities in cockney). In other accents of the British Isles the contrast between and weak may be variable; in Irish English the merger is almost universal. The merger is not complete in Scottish English, where speakers typically distinguish except from accept, but the latter can be phonemicized with an unstressed : (as can the word-final schwa in comma ) and the former with : . In other environments and are mostly merged to a quality around , often even when stressed (Wells transcribes this merged vowel with . Here, is used for the sake of consistency and accuracy) and when before , as in fir and letter (but not fern and fur - see nurse mergers). The vowel is : . Even in accents that do not have the merger, there may be certain words in which traditional is replaced by by many speakers (here the two sounds may be considered to be in free variation). In RP, is now often heard in place of in endings such as -ace (as in palace), -ate (as in senate), -less, -let, for the in -ily, -ity, -ible, and in initial weak be-, de-, re-, and e-. Final , and also and , are commonly realized as