"tan" /tæn/ in AmE and BE

[BobK]

It causes problems for pop singers* because many pop songs use a rhyme between "romance" and "dance" that works in Am English but not in Br. English. Most singers use /æ/, and some insist on using the two distinct phonemes.

b
*PS Not all pop singers - just (or chiefly) the ones whose accent is like RP in the case of these vowels. But when The Beatles sang Devil In Her Heart - for example - they didn't have to force the rhyme between "chance" (/ɑ:/) and "romance" (/æ/), because the words do rhyme in their dialect.

[BobK]

PPS Silly of me not to give the quote; it was in my mind when I gave the song title, but not in anyone else's mind - unless you thought to use Google:

...
I'll take my chances
for romance is
So important to me....

b