I voted as an American though I wasn’t born here. I’ve lived here for almost 40 years and my accent/dialect is very mixed up.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard an American pronounce the L in these words. I’ve lived in the Midwest, South, MidAtlantic, NYC and New England over these last 40 years. One thing I have noticed is the flattening of dialects over this time. Everywhere I go, the regional accents are less distinct than they used to be.
In my head I think I do, but I don’t know if it’s detectable, so I’m not sure how to answer. I’ve been saying “comm” and “calm” and “pom” and “palm” out loud and it’s making me loopy.
My mother, who grew up in a dual-language environment (English and French), would often replace the “l” with an “r” sound, to us kids’ continual amusement.
Though I imagine those same speakers wouldn’t pronounce the L in “stalk” if they were using it in the sense “OMG, he sent me ten texts in a row - he’s totally stalking me!”
IANALinguist. I’d say the “L” isn’t pronounced as much as it changes the shape of your mouth (via tongue) to make the “-alm” have a different sound. There’s probably a phrase for that.
I chose that I pronounce it in the poll, but I agree with this. I’m not sure I’m really pronouncing it as a distinct “L” sound. But the presence of the “L” definitely influences my pronunciation of the vowel that precedes it.
For “alms” like “alms for the poor” I would definitely say the L but I’m not sure about words like “calm” or “palm.” In my head they sound like “comm” and “pomm” though I am now saying them with the L and they don’t sound specifically wrong. I suspect that when I just say them without thinking I am not saying the L.
I definitely don’t say the L in “stalk” or “talk.” That just sounds bizarre and really forced.
Yeah, I pronounce something, but it’s sort of a notional “L” sound, not the full “L” formed by touching my tongue to the roof of my mouth right behind my top teeth. It’s more of a “moving my tongue toward the roof of my mouth” while I say the word- a half-assed “L” I suppose. Saying it fully with the tongue touching turns it into almost two syllables, while the half-assed sound keeps it firmly at one.
But nor do I skip it entirely and say “Cahm” or anything close either. There’s a definite sound in there for the “L”.
I always pronounce the “L” in “balm” to avoid confusion with “bomb”. I think I sometimes pronounce it in “calm” and “palm” as well (but never in “talk”).
Same with me on the pronounced Ls, though my vowels are slightly different for some *ok and *alk. My wok sounds ‘rounder,’ closer to squawk and my walk vowel sounds like thought. “I’ll give this some thOUGHt when I take my wALk.”
I pronounce ‘l’ almost all the time. Not sure about “folk”, though. I think I do, but it’s rolling around in my mouth so much that I can’t be sure how I pronounce it naturally. In my spoken dialect, however, “palm” and “pom” do not rhyme, nor do “stalk” and “stock”, or “calm/com”. I don’t pronounce the ‘l’ in “talk” or “walk”, though.
I’m the same as you, @ricepad. Pretty much always pronounce the L, which makes them sound different than the non-l versions: stock and stalk sound different, etc…
But not folk. If I add an “a” to the end of folk, it does not sound the same as polka, where I do pronounce the L.
Kinda grates on my nerves whenever I hear it, but since it’s quite likely the most irritating thing about her, I have no trouble grinning and bearing it.
Correction. Funnily enough, I do pronounce the L in folk music, but not if I’m referring to the good folks in my town, like how politicians talk.
(This entire topic seems to be a hotbed of semantic satiation for me. Writing the op had me feeling like pronounced is not a word. Now I’m feeling that with folk.)