“Short” vowels

STRUT

Realizations of the STRUT vowel display a wide range of phonetic variability. Interestingly enough, the high back [ʊ]  variant which in Britain is perhaps the most salient one, being a shibboleth of northern as against southern English accents, seems effectively restricted to the north of the British Isles and not to have been selected as a major type in any of the colonial varieties. The RP variant [Λ] is applied widely and all around the globe, but there are a fairly large number of variants, occurring also practically everywhere. These include centralization to [ə/ɐ] (especially in NZE and Pacific varieties) or, mostly in BrE, a “compromise” [ɤ] between central and the high-back northern types, backing and lowering, e.g. to [ɔ], in some northern US, Caribbean, and African accents, and also, though less commonly, fairly front realizations.