No.
Slightly.
ETA: I assumed you were responding to me saying that I did not pronounce them differently - I did not notice it was a response to Chronos.
Yes, those are all different, though the difference is very slight for “whole/hole” and “whore/hoar” (in both cases, the aspiration is slightly stronger with the W). And I also pronounce “sword” with a slightly different vowel (or vowel blend, or whatever it’s called) than “soared”.
I suppose in languages/dialects with umlauts, “lacuer” might be pronounced differently, but then again, “lacquer” might get the same treatment in those languages. Would you say them any differently?
It’s tough to say really, given that the combination of letters does not appear in any English words. It is pronounced differently from lacquer in evacuer and acuerdo but, as you say, lacquer would also be pronounced differently in French and Spanish. So on reflection, I will take “lacquer” as having a silent Q.
That’s nice.
Both Merriam Webster and American Heritage indicate they can be pronounced the same.
I pronounce them differently too. Specifically (for me) I have a rising intonation on the o in the w words while the “o” sound on the other two is flat (for lack of a better term).
So they do. I don’t use the longer pronunciation of “to” myself, but I guess that gets us once more into differences of dialect. We already have an O, so it is somewhat academic, but “too” qualifies for some people.
The way I looked at it, I took the second o off too and said, do I pronounce “to” as “toe”?
But if we’re going to count double letters, which one is the silent one?
The one you don’t pronounce :dubious:
So far we have not needed to count double letters.
Or, if that’s too exotic for you, “people.”
We haven’t in this thread, but so far the only non-dialectical examples offered for R here or in any of the links have been doubles.
I don’t say wak or tak; I’m not from Boston, you know. Does anyone omit the ‘l’ sound from almond?
Lots of people. I put a light “l” in there, but, then again, I put a light “l” in “folk,” where most people (at least to my ears and the dictionary) say “foke.”
Interesting. The only one of those words that I’d say has a truly silent ‘l’ is salmon, but in any case, I suppose the list got the task done.
Though I put a light “l” in “folk” and “yolk,” the “l” is definitely silent in “talk” and “walk.” (In my dialect, it’s “tawk” and “wawk.”) I don’t think I’ve ever noticed anyone putting an “l” in those. edit: The dictionaries I’ve consulted don’t even give that as an alternate pronunciation, but we do have at least two people in this thread who insert an “l” in there.
How common is it not to pronounce the ‘d’ in ‘sandwich’? My D is pretty strong in that word.
Yep. While I do not prounounce the ‘l’ in almond, it is not really “silent” in the way I am using it in this thread: “almond” is different from “amond”. Arguably, samon could be pronounced saymon, but I am happy to regard samon as being the same as salmon.
I pronounce it, too. The best one of the Ds to my ears is ‘handkerchief’.
Would February pass muster?
For the R, that is.