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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jan 2001
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In an article on the TV show The Middle in this week’s TV Guide, the cast answered the question “Did you guys immediately click?”
Neil [Flynn]: It’s strange. You’re barely introduced to someone, then you’re on camera and have to pretend to be in love and that you’ve known them all your life. Now we spend so much time together, we have developed relationships.
Patricia [Heaton]: Like the last shot we did yesterday. We were in the car together, and I forgot that everyone could hear us. We were talking about people who pronounce the “l” in “almond,” “palm,” “calm” … and just laughing our heads off. We concluded that you shouldn’t pronounce it, much to Neil’s chagrin, since he’s been pronouncing it all his life. That’s probably why he’s not married.
Neil: I didn’t realize how much I was turning off prospective wives. Who knew?
... Q: “What bugs you about each other?”:
Patricia: Well, Neil pronounces the “l” in “almond” …
Neil: I used to not pronounce the “l” in ‘wolf.” I was 25 when I learned about that. “The boy who cried woof.”
Patricia: My woof likes alllmonds!
This conversation puzzled me, since I pronounce the “l” in almond (and, calm and palm). And what do the cast members say? “Ah-mond?” “Aw-mond?” “ Pecan?” So, I asked a couple of people to say “almond”, and they pronounced the “l”, too. Is it a regional variation?, I wondered, and if so, where are the cast members of The Middle from? Well, a little poking around the net got me this: http://www4.uwm.edu/FLL/linguistics/dialect/staticmaps/q_29.html59.68% of those surveyed pronounce the “l”. 18.69% pronounce it “ah-mond” 5.65% pronounce it “aw-mond” 13.53% say something between “l” and nothing 2.45% say “other”, which is quite the leap from “almond” :p Look at the map in the link. The variation isn’t regional. It looks like all versions of the pronunciation of “almond” occur all over the country. It was just Neil Flynn’s bad luck to be stuck in a car with the 18% and/or 5% who distain the twelfth letter of the alphabet. A shame, really, since he has been misled on his matrimonial failure, and “L” is one of my favorite letters. So, how do *you* say “almond”?
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Joined: Apr 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
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I say something in between l and nothing, because this is just the sort of thing that I worry about getting wrong.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Boy howdy! Now I'm all self conscious about it and I don't know if I pronounce the L or not. I kinda think I'm with tsuwm here and sort of almost maybe pronounce it. It's probably one of those words like salmon where the L was added back in when we discovered it was from the Latin, which did have the L. The L was lost in Old French before we got the word salmon. We called the fish leax before the French word came in and muscled that word out.
A quick check of my Random House Dictionary shows that the L was there in OFr when we got almond from them so I guess there's no reason not to pronounce it.
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Joined: Mar 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
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I don't keep the L out of it.
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Joined: Jun 2008
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2008
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Lots of red where I am: we say the "l".
----please, draw me a sheep----
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Sep 2010
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Great story...and subject  I had to say it out loud to hear wither I do or not. And I don't...well that is to say I kinda say 'ar mond' No way can I insert the 'L' sound. Same as Salmon. With that word though there is no 'sound' between 'sa' and 'mon' but if the L was deleted, wouldn't the word look silly!
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Joined: May 2010
Posts: 963
old hand
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old hand
Joined: May 2010
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Ahlmund. I think that for calm (and palm) my pronunciation varies, depending on…I don't know what it depends on, but it runs from kahm to kawlm, with stops in kahlm and kawm and all point between. When the L is there, it's just hinted at. Obviously, I, of all people, should know better than to criticize or laugh at how people pronounce things!
Peter
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Joined: Jun 2006
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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We called the fish leax before the French word came in and muscled that word out.Thank you Faldage , now I know where the Swedish gravadlax comes from. I know it survives in German - Lachs, but I didn't know the leax part. I pronounce the l in salmon and almond, it prolonges the a-sound and somehow that makes me want to have both treats right now! Love those maps. 13.53% say something between “l” and nothing
2.45% say “other”, which is quite the leap from “almond” :p Laugh!
Last edited by BranShea; 02/27/11 01:11 PM.
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Joined: Dec 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Yeah. Lox comes from the PIE laks-, 'salmon'.
Now the first L in salmonella is a whole nother thing. That salmon is from a guy's name and is pronounced.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Yeah. Lox comes from the PIE laks-, 'salmon'.
Now the first L in salmonella is a whole nother thing. That salmon is from a guy's name and is pronounced. I was just thinking about that guy and the trouble he got into.
----please, draw me a sheep----
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