The Mid-Atlantic dialectal region is characterized by several unique phonological features:
No cot-caught merger: There is a huge difference in the pronunciation between the cot class of words and the caught class, as in New York City. The caught class is raised and diphthongized towards.
Lot-cloth split: Similarly, the single word "on" has the vowel of "dawn", and not the same vowel as "don" etc. Labov et al. regard this phenomenon as occurring not just in the Mid-Atlantic region, but in all regions south of a geographic boundary that they identify as the "ON line", which is significant because it distinguishes most varieties of Northern American English from most varieties of Midland and Southern American English.
Short-a split system: The Mid-Atlantic region uses a short-a split system similar to, but more limited than, the New York City short-a split system. Generally, in the Mid-Atlantic system, the vowel is tensed before the consonants,,,, and in a closed syllable, and in any words directly inflectionally derived from root words with this split. Therefore, pass and passing use the tense, but passage and passive use the lax. The lax and the tense reflexes of are separate phonemes in these dialects, though largely predictable using the aforementioned rules. There are exceptions, however; the three words bad, mad, and glad become tense, and irregular verbs ending in "-an" or "-am" remain lax.
Strong fronting in the starting places of these vowels: , and , none of which occur in New York City English but are, rather, similar to Midland U.S. English, and even Southern U.S. English.
Rhoticity: The Mid-Atlantic dialect, unlike the traditional New York City dialect, is mostly rhotic.
Positive anymore may be used without its negative polarity to mean "nowadays," as in "Her hoagies taste different anymore."
The term is sometimes used in this and the Boston dialect to refer to small confectionaries used to top ice cream and icing, generally called sprinkles in New York and the rest of the United States.
The term rail drink may be used in parts of the Mid-Atlantic region, in particular in much of the Washington, D.C./Baltimore metro area, for what is known as a "well drink" in bars and pubs in much or most of the rest of the U.S.
