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I'm wondering if a flap occurs in wedding, and bidding in American pronunciation? I can't hear it out here: http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/american/wedding

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    That pronunciation is odd. It would normally have a flap in most American pronunciations (including General American).
    – Mike
    Commented Mar 29, 2015 at 15:04
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    Most Americans use flaps in these words, but not all Americans do. Think of a flap as one of several possible alternate American pronunciations, rather than the only genuine American pronunciation.
    – Peter Shor
    Commented Mar 29, 2015 at 15:10
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    The pronouncer of "wedding" sounds American, but seems as if he was trying to be careful in his pronunciation, rather than natural. The pronouncer of "bidding" at that same site sounds (to my American ear) British, or at least Canadian.
    – Brian Hitchcock
    Commented Mar 29, 2015 at 21:48
  • Well when you use the search function it automatically redirects you to the British version of the site so that explains some of it. I also searched a few other words that should have flaps and I noticed that some of the words including wedding and bladder have elongated vowels before what should be the flap. My guess is its cut and pasted audio because they don't have the actual recording or some sort of super good speech imitation program.
    – Alex L.
    Commented May 4, 2015 at 17:08
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    In the US we generally try to avoid flaps in weddings.
    – Hot Licks
    Commented Aug 8, 2015 at 12:06

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The simple answer to this is speed. As others have said, a lot, but definitely not all, Americans pronounce wedding and bidding with a lateral flap. But the thing to notice here is that the flap isn't an actual flap.

Here is the case with these words:
The dd (or just a d for our purposes) is surrounded by vowels which require the tongue to stay away from the palate. Since the tongue goes from a vowel (away from palate) to a consonant (touching palate) to another vowel (away from palate), a lateral flap is produced depending on how fast the sequence is spoken.

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  • Is the flap usually lateral? I don't remember hearing that before.
    – herisson
    Commented Aug 8, 2015 at 12:09

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