I’ve lived in [northern] CA for almost 30 years, and I have never heard anyone from here pronounce it like raing. It’s rang, sang, bang, hang… all short a’s. I grew up in New England and never heard that long a there, either. I say rang with a short a.
Native Southern Californian. I agree; I’ve never heard a Californian say ‘rayng’.
:dubious: Didn’t you say you grew up/used to live in New York? I find it hard to believe that you are unfamiliar with the long a sound for rang. Rang, bang, clang, dang, sang, etc. they are all pronounced in New York with the same vowel sound as rain, main, pain, etc.
Think of the song “The Rain in Spain” from My Fair Lady. All those words use the same vowel.
It’s a half-long a, not quite the long a in “fate” but certainly not the short a in “fan.”
I say it like Lurch.
That’s quite the broad brush!
Growing up in Boston, and living in Toronto, I’ve only heard – and can only imagine – “rang” to have the same sound as “rain”.
To respond to others: that vowel sound is a diphthong, as Johanna notes, the sound commonly called “long a”.
To me they are as different as man and main. And I don’t think it is length, as in rider and writer. And while is does seem to be colored by the ng, there is no ng in man. From Philly, FWIW.
Southern Ontario here.
“Rang” to be sounds exactly like the way the character Rango says his name, just leaving off the switch to a hard G and then the O. So it doesn’t rhyme with “rain.” It’s very, very close to “ran,” but the nasal sound of -ng upticks it a tiny bit.
Stephen, if you live in Toronto, I’d be awfully surprised if you’ve never heard “rang” spoken without a long A sound.
I’ve lived in the midwest all my life and until this thread, I’ve never even heard of anyone pronouncing it with other than a short a sound. Rhymes with sang, hang bang (and brang if you’re Neil Diamond). And Lurch didn’t say “You ræææææng?”, he said “You raaaangngngngng?”
Wuhhuh? 
Out here in CA, Rang rimes with “bang, fang, tang, dang, wang”.
But Fat rimes with cat, hat, bat…
Maynard G (the “G” is silent) Krebs sez it exactly right. Check him out on Youtube somehwere, I am sure they have him saying “You rang?”
Lurch is not quite right, but close.
BtW that article is so full of shit.
And “ranG” cant rime with “raiN”, even tho the "a’ sounds are similar, as “G” does not rime with “N”.
Yes. Lurch says it the way the OP would say it sounds like “rain.” I have heard other people say it the other way, now that I think of it, but only in a British accent. I unfortunately can’t think of anyone who says the word to find a video on YouTube.
I find it very hard to believe that any American has not heard the “rain” pronunciation, as it’s used in broadcaster English.
And, yes, I also say ainger, baink, ainchor, etc, and, again, that’s Standard American English.
Your wife must love that!
No, it isn’t.
Dictionary.com gives the (only) pronounciation for rang as “/ræŋ/”. According to their pronounciation key, the /æ/ sound is as found in “apple, can, hat.” On the other hand, the sound used in “rain” is /eɪ/ as in aid, hate, day.
Short “a” is the standard pronounciation.
Curiosity question for those of you who consider rang to be pronounced with the same vowel sound as the one in ran: can you identify any word — any word whatsoever — that ends in “ng” and which has the same vowel sound as the a in “ate”, “fate”, “main”, and “plane”?
(If you don’t consider those four to have the same “a” sound say so and for purposes of this question go with the “a” sound in “fate”)
I cannot think of any.
No. I don’t seem to have any trouble enunciating “raing”, but I can’t think of any words that I actually pronounce like that. I can’t think of any occasion in which a diphthong is followed by /ŋ/ .
[eta] hmm, what about “boing”?
Color me surprised. I had no idea there was any pronunciation OTHER than RAYng. I grew up in California and am blown away that there are Californians claiming they hear it as RANg.
The answers I’m getting so far are feeding my suspicions.
I am now thinking that some people HEAR (or THINK OF) rang as having the same vowel as the a in ran and other people HEAR (or THINK OF) it as having the same vowel as the a in Maine or fate. But it is probably best understood as being neither of those things precisely; we know the ŋ sound that follows it colors the vowel by making it nasalized. So I think what’s happening is that we’re being somewhat evenly split into those to whom that sound seems closer to the “a” in ran and those to hom that sound seems closer to the “a” in fate. Note that in both cases, people can’t think of a single example of the other configuration and in many cases can’t even conjure up what such a sound would sound like.
Which is a clear illustration of the difference between phoneme and allophone. However different the sounds produced in different dialects, they all share the same phonemic identity.
One reason why the IP system is bullshit.
http://oald8.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/dictionary/ring_3
rang
ræŋ ræŋ
Note that those two are written exactly the same, but when you clik on the sounds, they sound different.
Rang rimes with wang, bang, gang, fang, etc. Never with ran, fan, ban, Dan.
Oddly, both of those two drop the “G” sound mostly, which is a way I never hear it.
But of the two the NAmE pronunciation is closest. So yeah, if you say “rain” but take away the N but add a G, that’s the way we say it around here.