The suffix -ed is typically pronounced in one of three ways:
- /d/ after voiced sounds other than /d/.
- /t/ after voiceless sounds other than /t/.
- /ɪd/ after /t/ or /d/.
The verb miss is pronounced /mɪs/. Since the final sound is the voiceless consonant /s/, the suffix -ed is pronounced /t/. This means that the whole word missed is pronounced /mɪst/.
Coincidentally, the noun mist is also pronounced /mɪst/.
Generally, double consonants are not pronounced distinctly in English, unless they are part of different syllables and the emphasis is on the second syllable.
A word like dissatisfied is formed by adding a prefix dis- to the word satisfied. It starts off with two s in separate syllables, and can be pronounced like that- one at the end of the first syllable, one at the end of the second syllable.
A word like irregular is formed by adding a prefix in- to the word regular. The n-r combination is difficult to say, so we replace the n by another r. The same thing happens with the letter l, so in + licit becomes illicit. According to Cambridge Dictionary, the first l is not pronounced, likewise with in + modest. Note that this conversion only happens with word that passed through medieval latin: more modern words like inroad (1540), inlay (16th C) and inline (1913) are unaffected.
The same kind of conversion happens in arabic for sun letters (il+r -> irr). In arabic double consonants are always clearly pronounced, and this applies to sun letter conversions too.
In a non-rhotic dialects there is an identifiable reaason for not pronouncing the first r, because in non-rhotic dialects (England english, for example) an r followed by a consonant is not pronounced.
In rhotic dialects such as US english, the pronunciation of the n-become-r is, according to Merriam-Webster, optional.
I am a native of England (non-rhotic) and I do not pronounce it as a double r. I can and do double the r when speaking arabic, so I do understand the difference. Other natives of England do not pronounce the double r. If I heard somebody pronounce it with a double r, I would assume that they were foreign. I believe that I have heard natives of Scotland (rhotic) pronouncing it with a double r. I cannot comment on US english.
Here are recordings of me saying irregular and erectile:
And here I say irregular again, pronouncing the two r's separately.
Best Answer
English has a lot more vowels than most languages, so most learners need to re-train their ears to recognize the additional vowels. In both British English and American English, the difference between ball and bowl is small, but significant. It is easy for native speakers to recognize because their ears are trained to do so.
In ball, the vowel is a long vowel: that means that it sounds the same all the way through. The same long vowel occurs in law- /lɔː/ in BrE and /lɑː/ in AmE.
In bowl, the vowel is a diphthong, which means that there is a glide between two different sounds. The same diphthong occurs in low- /ləʊ/ in BrE and /loʊ/ in AmE.
You can see the difference clearly in this spectrogram of a British English speaker saying ball and bowl. In the first word, ball, the long vowel is the same all the way through. In the second word, bowl, the diphthong sound changes, starting at the red cursor line.
Regarding your comment about casual, fast-paced conversations: when people speak casually, and when they speak quickly, the parts that lose clarity are the function words: the little words that provide the structure for the language.
Take the word and, for example: the strong form is /ænd/, but most of the time we use the weak form /ənd/. As speech gets progressively faster and/or more casual, it becomes /ən/ and finally /n/.
Meanwhile, the important words- nouns like ball and bowl- are usually stressed, and don't soften up in the same way. The central vowel in a stressed word is about as protected as you can get.
You might get some de-stressing if the noun is preceded by an adjective (the red ball) or when it's part of a compound noun (a furball), and this might weaken the clarity a little, but not, in my opinion, enough to make it impossible to discriminate for a native listener with the same accent.