# OK: Where did I pick up this (US regional) pronunciation of "almond"?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-where-did-i-pick-up-this-us-regional-pronunciation-of-almond/632093
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [August 20, 2012, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-where-did-i-pick-up-this-us-regional-pronunciation-of-almond/632093 "2012-08-20T20:39:21Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 4
### Author:  [@Dr.Woo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Woo)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2012, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-where-did-i-pick-up-this-us-regional-pronunciation-of-almond/632093/61 "2012-08-23T00:01:37Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#):
>
> I was embarrassed when I realized that the real amm’nd farmers pronounced it differently than ahlmond, the way I’d always heard it. I attributed it. I figured it was an Okie thing. Central Valley agriculture is dominated by Okies and Meskins. Except for dairying, that was always the province of the Portagees.
>
> They all talk funny.
Portagees + Irish for the dairying. And yeah, in that part of California it’s ammnds.
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### Author:  [@robardin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robardin)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2012, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-where-did-i-pick-up-this-us-regional-pronunciation-of-almond/632093/62 "2012-08-23T02:54:15Z")
OK I turned to Google for clips of Californian farmers saying “almond”. Most say “oll-mond”, but one guy standing amidst the trees says “Al-mond” (as in, “You Can Call Me Al”).
The voiceover on this vidclip says “Oll-mond” and so does “Paul Wenger from Modesto” of the California Farm Bureau:
[ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78dBTe05pR8)
So does this guy from “north of Fresno”:
[![]( " - YouTube") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVd34PsNCiw)
This guy in the intro says “Oll-mond” too, but the guy in the red sweater who’s the actual farmer (who has a distinctly different accent) says “Al-mond”.
[ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkDuTHMVYbs)
So far, I’m still looking for a clip of someone - anyone, anywhere - saying “almond to rhyme with salmon” the way I described in the OP… Maybe I should try looking for Woody Allen saying “almond”?!
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### Author:  [@robardin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robardin)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2012, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-where-did-i-pick-up-this-us-regional-pronunciation-of-almond/632093/63 "2012-08-23T03:01:01Z")
I found one! This guy from Bella Viva Orchards from Hughson, CA which Google Maps shows me is near Modesto.
[ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2CMxHPi9j0)
ETA: in that clip he even discusses the proper pronunciation being “Oll-monds”, at around the 1:20 mark. In the same sentence where he pronounces “Wikipedia” with a long I in the first syllable (“Wy-kipedia”). Man, I can’t be associated with this! I have to shake this habit, but after 25 or 30 years it’s gonna be tough!
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### Author:  [@robardin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robardin)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2012, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-where-did-i-pick-up-this-us-regional-pronunciation-of-almond/632093/64 "2012-08-23T03:36:33Z")
Hmm, more data. My wife and her parents, multi-generational New Yorkers, all say almond as rhyming with salmon. They talk rather like Woody Allen, who is about 12 years older than they are. I feel somewhat vindicated, in a weird way. The search continues…!
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### Author:  [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2012, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-where-did-i-pick-up-this-us-regional-pronunciation-of-almond/632093/65 "2012-08-23T04:01:11Z")
> [@Lazy](#):
>
> Are you sure you pronounce the ‘l’ in walk? I’ve never heard that, and am fairly sure I would have noticed it if I had.
I also pronounce the ‘l’ in walk/talk, and have all my life (I’m 51 now).
I also pronounce the ‘h’ in “Wil Wheaton.”
> [@Twoflower](#):
>
> In the northern Sacramento Valley, where they grow the things, “almond” rhymes with “salmon”. I’ve never heard it pronounced that way anywhere else.
Wait wait wait - besides for the ‘l’ sound, those two words have completely different vowel sounds in the first syllable.
So now I’m trying to figure out whether you say “ammond” with an ‘a’ from “cat,” or whether you say “sahhhlmon” with the broad-a sound from “walk.” Just saying you pronounce those two the same doesn’t help me.
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### Author:  [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2012, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-where-did-i-pick-up-this-us-regional-pronunciation-of-almond/632093/66 "2012-08-23T04:16:59Z")
> [@CurtC](#):
>
> So now I’m trying to figure out whether you say “ammond” with an ‘a’ from “cat,” or whether you say “sahhhlmon” with the broad-a sound from “walk.” Just saying you pronounce those two the same doesn’t help me.
It’s the “a” from cat.
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### Author:  [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2012, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-where-did-i-pick-up-this-us-regional-pronunciation-of-almond/632093/67 "2012-08-23T06:48:18Z")
> [@CurtC](#):
>
> I also pronounce the ‘l’ in walk/talk, and have all my life (I’m 51 now).
>
> I also pronounce the ‘h’ in “Wil Wheaton.”
::nods::
I pronounce the x (as an x not as a z) in xylophone.
I do not claim, however, to pronounce the k and the gh in knight.
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### Author:  [@Lazy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lazy)
#### Post date: [August 23, 2012, 11:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-where-did-i-pick-up-this-us-regional-pronunciation-of-almond/632093/68 "2012-08-23T11:23:04Z")
> [@CurtC](#):
>
> I also pronounce the ‘l’ in walk/talk, and have all my life (I’m 51 now).
>
> I also pronounce the ‘h’ in “Wil Wheaton.”
>
> Wait wait wait - besides for the ‘l’ sound, those two words have completely different vowel sounds in the first syllable.
>
> So now I’m trying to figure out whether you say “ammond” with an ‘a’ from “cat,” or whether you say “sahhhlmon” with the broad-a sound from “walk.” Just saying you pronounce those two the same doesn’t help me.
Actually, in this Wikipedia article, it says that some Southerners do pronounce the “l”
> **[Southern American English](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_American_English)**
>
> Southern American English or Southern U.S. English is a regional dialect or collection of dialects of American English spoken throughout the Southern United States, primarily by White Southerners and increasingly concentrated in more rural areas. As of 2000s research, its most innovative accents include southern Appalachian and certain Texan accents. Such research has described Southern American English as the largest American regional accent group by number of speakers. More forma A diversity of...
It even gives a link to a sound file that doesn’t seem to work for me, but might for others.
[Here](http://www.utexas.edu/courses/linguistics/resources/socioling/talkmap/index.html)is a map of the variation.
Probably I have heard it, but it never registered somehow…
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### Author:  [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2012, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-where-did-i-pick-up-this-us-regional-pronunciation-of-almond/632093/69 "2012-08-24T03:21:14Z")
> [@Kitty\_A](#):
>
> That’s funny because I do pronounce the L in alms, palm, calm, and psalm, but not in walk or talk. In keeping with that, I also say the L in almond. I grew up in the Midwest, not sure if that has anything to do with it.
I’m from Michigan, and I also pronounce the ‘L’ in all of those words except walk and talk.
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### Author:  [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2012, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-where-did-i-pick-up-this-us-regional-pronunciation-of-almond/632093/70 "2012-08-24T13:07:13Z")
Incidentally, I recently figured out why I think it sounds weird to leave out the L in wolf, even though I know I’ve heard people do it on TV all my life. It’s because, when I think about making it silent, I think of making it sound like woof, which for me is a more fronted sound, like a smaller dog would say. But wolf uses a back sound, due to the L being made in the back of the throat, so, even when the vowel is silent, the vowel stays towards the back.
Oh, and about the only word I can think of with a silent L in my dialect is half.
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### Author:  [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)
#### Post date: [August 24, 2012, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-where-did-i-pick-up-this-us-regional-pronunciation-of-almond/632093/71 "2012-08-24T15:37:43Z")
> [@BigT](#):
>
> Incidentally, I recently figured out why I think it sounds weird to leave out the L in wolf, even though I know I’ve heard people do it on TV all my life.
Because it is weird. Is the “l”-less pronunciation of “wolf” that common? Neither [dictionary.com](http://dictionary.com), Marriam-Webster, nor Wiktionary list the “l”-less variant.
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### Author:  [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)
#### Post date: [August 25, 2012, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-where-did-i-pick-up-this-us-regional-pronunciation-of-almond/632093/72 "2012-08-25T02:34:01Z")
> [@BigT](#):
>
> Oh, and about the only word I can think of with a silent L in my dialect is half.
Calf?
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### Author:  [@robardin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robardin)
#### Post date: [December 21, 2013, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-where-did-i-pick-up-this-us-regional-pronunciation-of-almond/632093/73 "2013-12-21T23:41:27Z")
OK, this idiosyncrasy of mine (as it seems to be, along with my wife and parents-in-law, who I did not pick it up from, I don’t think) came up as an object of contention yet again recently. Thanks to the tradition of holiday nuts.
This time, a resort to Google/YouTube on “how to pronounce almond” got this as one of the top hits, where the guy (to my ear) says it pretty much the way I do, at least the first time or two he says it (he also seems to say it two different ways):
[![]( " - YouTube") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_9KxE4Jhi0)
It’s also the [second of the given pronunciations](http://media.merriam-webster.com/soundc11/a/almon01m.wav) in the Merriam Webster online dictionary at [Almond Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster](http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/almond), almost exactly.
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### Author:  [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2013, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-where-did-i-pick-up-this-us-regional-pronunciation-of-almond/632093/74 "2013-12-22T00:13:19Z")
While the nut is on the tree, you would pronounce the “L” … awl-mund.
During harvest, a machine grabs the tree and shakes the “L” out of them, then it’s pronounced without that sound … awe-mund.
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### Author:  [@SerafinaPekala](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SerafinaPekala)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2013, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-where-did-i-pick-up-this-us-regional-pronunciation-of-almond/632093/75 "2013-12-22T00:21:04Z")
> [@Jragon](#):
>
> Same, but I’ll raise you that I say “sal-mun”, not “sam’n”.
Where y’all from, hun? My DH is from PA and drives me nuts when he says “SOL-mun” instead of “SAMM-un” 🙂
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### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2013, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-where-did-i-pick-up-this-us-regional-pronunciation-of-almond/632093/76 "2013-12-22T00:57:36Z")
> [@SerafinaPekala](#):
>
> Where y’all from, hun? My DH is from PA and drives me nuts when he says “SOL-mun” instead of “SAMM-un” 🙂
Did you mean: where “you-uns” from? 🙂
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### Author:  [@SerafinaPekala](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SerafinaPekala)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2013, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-where-did-i-pick-up-this-us-regional-pronunciation-of-almond/632093/77 "2013-12-22T01:02:07Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#):
>
> Did you mean: where “you-uns” from? 🙂
lol no, i believe “y’uns/you’uns” is the PA pronunciation. Im not from PA, he is.
> **[Urban Dictionary: Yun](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Yun)**
>
> Doesn't know it; but is genuinely gorgeous. Lacks too much self respect, and needs to realize how wonderful she is. You can talk to her for the entire day and won't feel exhausted at all, she is simply somebody you'll be glad that you met. She is a...
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### Author:  [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2013, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-where-did-i-pick-up-this-us-regional-pronunciation-of-almond/632093/78 "2013-12-22T01:26:49Z")
I grew up with all-mund, so that’s how I pronounce it. Of course, my mother also said ‘rag-out’ instead of ‘ragoo’, so there’s that. The French word is _amande_, and since the English world stuck an ‘L’ in there, I pronounce it. I draw the line at off-ten, however.
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### Author:  [@JBDivmstr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JBDivmstr)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2013, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-where-did-i-pick-up-this-us-regional-pronunciation-of-almond/632093/79 "2013-12-22T02:18:20Z")
:Slight hijack:
Since we’re on the subject of word pronunciation…
How do y’all say pecan? I’ve always pronounced it as pi-con, with the pi sound as in pick.
In junior high I had a teacher that insisted that it should be pronounced pee-can.
I refused to say it that way back then, and I ain’t about to change, now. 😉
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### Author:  [@Max\_the\_Immortal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_the_Immortal)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2013, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-where-did-i-pick-up-this-us-regional-pronunciation-of-almond/632093/80 "2013-12-22T06:38:13Z")
I say something like awl-mund, but the l is very reduced; the tongue does not touch the alveolar ridge or upper teeth as with the l in “lake”. The l in words like “calm” and is even more reduced, but not entirely absent. The words “walk” and “wok” are not perfectly homophonous to me. “Wok” is clipped, and “walk” is a bit drawn out; this drawing out can be said to be because of the l, but its sound is only a teensy bit l-like.
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