Do you pronounce the L in calm, palm, etc...?

In My Humble Opinion
61

Color me a bit surprised at the three folks from different parts of the country not having heard of the phrase “salve your conscience”. But facts is facts.

I have no idea where or when I learned it, but it was as a kid or teen reading something. And I think I’m sure I’ve encountered it in the wild since. Somehow it’s stuck with me all these years, but obviously I’ve overimagined how common it is.

And ref one comment, no, there’s no religious anything in my background. Not parents, not sibs, minimal reading about religion except as history. As an American, of course I’m steeped in the Xian culture we’re stuck with. But I grew up in a relatively religion-lite part of the country.

'Tis a mystery.

62

I’d never heard it either but just typing in “salve your” into google shows “salve your conscience” as the first autocomplete answer. So google agrees with you about it being a not uncommon phrase.

63

I don’t think I’d ever heard of the dark L before reading this thread.

But yesterday I had NPR on in the car and they were talking about it.

64

Back when I used to work in an office, a co-worker once made fun of me for not pronouncing the ‘L’ in ‘ALMOND’. I asked him, do you pronounce the ‘L’ in ‘SALMON’? How about ‘YOLK’?

I looked it up-- apparently ALMOND both with and without the pronounced ‘L’ is correct. But I’ve taken to pronouncing the ‘L’ now to fit in with humans better.

65

IIRC the folks in the California central valley who grow all those almonds pronounce it something like “amminz” or “amm’nz”

66

Yep. I was driving from L.A. to Bellingham one time in the '90s, listening to an NPR story, and a guy (honcho in the Almond Growers Association, or something like that) kept saying ‘ammins’. Since I’d found the station late, I had no idea what he was talking about. I finally figured out he was talking about ‘all-munds’.

67

Here in California’s Central Valley, the farmers say they’re ALMONDS on the tree, but AMMUNDS after the harvest. The trees are shaken quite violently during harvest to knock the nuts to the ground, and the process shakes the “L” out of 'em.

(I think every almond farmer in the valley thinks he made up that joke.)

68

The words falcon and salmon grew up together but falcon’s L is never in doubt.

I was thinking about folk and I think I say the L, a little, when it’s an adjective or description:

Folk music needs more synth. And less of that folky rhythm.

But not when referring to people:

How are your folks? Strange folks, kinfolk.

69

Some of us learned how to pronounce it from Ren and Stimpy:

(at 1:17)

70

If you’d like one more data point-- I have read it, probably more than a couple times, but I’ve never heard it spoken nor said it myself. I grew up in the Midwest.

71

I had silent L on my mind when I paused at the keyboard to remember it’s not “involked.”

72

This describes me exactly. I find it hard to even force my tongue to touch the roof of my mouth for the dark l. In fact, touching the roof of the mouth pretty much defines the bilateral l.

FWIW, I will mention that I do not have any part of the Mary, marry, merry merge, but merry and Murray are identical in my speech. And salve and salmon do not have any l sound.

73

For the bilateral L, the tip of my tongue is between my front teeth. For the dark L, it’s at the root of my mouth near the front.

74

This is so weird for someone who learned English as a second language. The L is very obvious every single time I’ve heard the word calm and palm. Cam and pam are two completely different words that do not sound the same.

75

Well yeah, calm or palm are completely different from cam or pam (pronounced like the names). “Cam down” or “a Pam tree” sound bizarre. I would be unsure what the speaker was actually saying if I heard that.

76

What you’d more likely hear instead of “cam” and “pam” are closer to “com” and “pom”.

77

Most people, when asked how they pronounce a word, will not pronounce it the same way they do when not prompted. And people will affect spelling pronunciations when reading aloud that they wouldn’t when speaking naturally. Most of these lateral consonants disappear outside of those circumstances.

Letters are not pronounced. They represent (historic, prestige) pronunciations.

78

A friend of mine in college who worked at the campus radio station once introduced a piece by Scriabin by pointing out that the Russian pronunciation is “scree-ah-BEEN,” not “scree-ah-BIN” as we say it in English. Of course some know-it-all immediately called in to tell him it’s not pronounced with the accent on the last syllable…

79

I just asked my son who grew up in Montreal and has spent most of his adult life in Redmond and he says sa(l)mon (no el) but salve with an l sound. But he omits the l in calm, palm, etc.

80

That is something I am careful with. I don’t just say the word I’m asked about. I get started talking about something that might use the word, and listen when it slips in to see how I say it when I don’t think about it. Though that has the issue that it only tells me how I say it in quick speech.

It’s how I know I usually pronounce “we’ll” like “wool”, unlike she’ll and he’ll which I pronounce as “shill” and “hill”, respectively. (And, yes, I know why. The /w/ pulls the vowel sound back. And of course these words are never stressed so their vowels get reduced.)

I think this is overstated, however. The /l/ phoneme, as well as its elision, are well attested in these words in various dialects. The specific patterns of elision and inclusion being described here all exist.

The only one that actually seems a bit hard to say is the -lm words, so I can see the l being elided in non-careful speech with more common words by some who say they pronounce it. But that’s more a mechanical issue than not perceiving the phoneme as present. They’re still “trying” to say it, rather than simply affecting a spelling-pronunciation when they see it in print.