Describing how vowels are pronounced is tricky, especially with all of the different varieties of English, where pronunciations of the same vowel differ based on region. John C. Wells created the lexical sets in 1982 to have a standardized way to refer to words that are historically pronounced with the same vowel and to refer to the phoneme itself. 

 

For example, someone who spoke Appalachian English would not pronounce TRAP vowels the same way as someone from Northern California, but they would generally understand that all of the words in the set contain the same vowel. So, even if they do not pronounce the vowel the same way, they can acknowledge that they are referring to the same vowel. For the key words to also represent classes, Wells chose words that do not sound like other words in English, so there is no confusion when someone refers to one of the sets in an accent that is different from what we are used to.

 

It is important to note that that a vowel’s pronunciation may vary based on its phonetic environment. For example, a vowel before  in front of M, N, L, or R will likely sound different from the same vowel before a T or a B. If this occurs with a specific variety, it will be noted in the phonology section.

 

The following link is an in-depth description with examples of words that belong to each set and typical spellings of words that belong in these sets:

 

 

 

Adapted from J.C. Wells' Accents of English: Introduction Chapter 2. Typical spellings taken from Reference Vowels & Lexical Sets in Accent Acquisition by Douglas N. Honorof.

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Below is an abbreviated chart for easier reference. Please note that RP refers to English pronunciations in England, while GenAm refers to what we would consider standard English.