# 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:** 5
### Author:  [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2013, 10:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-where-did-i-pick-up-this-us-regional-pronunciation-of-almond/632093/81 "2013-12-22T10:03:36Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#):
>
> I live in the UK and always say ah-mund. It tends to be so pronounced by older people (I’m 60) as it used to be standard years ago, as balm (bahm), alms (ahms), falcon (faw-con) and others.
I am older by 10 years and always used to say Ahhmond. These days I say Allmond. I have no idea why.
Balm and Alms I agree with but faw-con??? Always been Fall-kon as far as I know.
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### Author:  [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2013, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-where-did-i-pick-up-this-us-regional-pronunciation-of-almond/632093/82 "2013-12-22T11:50:14Z")
My hometown is in Upstate NY, near the tri-city area of Albany - Troy - Schenectady. It’s ALL-mund for me.
Sometimes you feel like a nut. Sometimes you don’t.
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### Author:  [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2013, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-where-did-i-pick-up-this-us-regional-pronunciation-of-almond/632093/83 "2013-12-22T13:10:08Z")
[scratches head]
When talking with the farmer who has it growing from the ground, they say what I said in post #74. Anyone else here who lived in Modesto, CA? Ripon? How about Stockton?
Here’s the test, when you finish eating a peach, take a hammer and break the pit open … what to you find … that’s RIGHT … an almond !!! If you didn’t know that, then you’re pronouncing it wrong.
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### Author:  [@freckafree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/freckafree)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2013, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-where-did-i-pick-up-this-us-regional-pronunciation-of-almond/632093/84 "2013-12-22T14:11:00Z")
Brother-in-law from No. Cal. insists it’s AM-mond.
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### Author:  [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2013, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-where-did-i-pick-up-this-us-regional-pronunciation-of-almond/632093/85 "2013-12-22T14:18:47Z")
> [@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.
Same. An “l” so soft in calm and psalm that it is barely voiced but there. Alms and palm have it clearly there, as does almond.
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### Author:  [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2013, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-where-did-i-pick-up-this-us-regional-pronunciation-of-almond/632093/86 "2013-12-22T16:18:46Z")
> [@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.
Me too, mostly from California.
Those saying ‘almond’ rhymes with ‘salmon’ make me wonder if I’m been mispronouncing ‘salmon’ all my life. :dubious: I think ‘salmon’ rhymes with ‘famine.’
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### Author:  [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2013, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-where-did-i-pick-up-this-us-regional-pronunciation-of-almond/632093/87 "2013-12-22T16:36:12Z")
Salmon does rhyme with famine!
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### Author:  [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2013, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-where-did-i-pick-up-this-us-regional-pronunciation-of-almond/632093/88 "2013-12-22T16:36:32Z")
This map indicates that not only is there no consistency among English speakers on the pronunciation of “almond,” but there’s not even any consistency in any one region:
[http://www4.uwm.edu/FLL/linguistics/dialect/staticmaps/q\_29.html](http://www4.uwm.edu/FLL/linguistics/dialect/staticmaps/q_29.html)
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### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2013, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-where-did-i-pick-up-this-us-regional-pronunciation-of-almond/632093/89 "2013-12-22T16:43:10Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#):
>
> This map indicates that not only is there no consistency among English speakers on the pronunciation of “almond,” but there’s not even any consistency in any one region:
>
> [http://www4.uwm.edu/FLL/linguistics/dialect/staticmaps/q\_29.html](http://www4.uwm.edu/FLL/linguistics/dialect/staticmaps/q_29.html)
Your cite doesn’t include the OP’s pronunciation, where the initial “a” is pronounced as in “at” and the “l” is silent.
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### Author:  [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2013, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-where-did-i-pick-up-this-us-regional-pronunciation-of-almond/632093/90 "2013-12-22T17:08:04Z")
That’s true, which shows that the variation in pronunciation is even greater than that map indicates.
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### Author:  [@Skinnybones\_Lampshade](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skinnybones_Lampshade)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2013, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-where-did-i-pick-up-this-us-regional-pronunciation-of-almond/632093/91 "2013-12-22T19:28:34Z")
Members of a branch of my mother’s family, from Gaspe, Quebec, have the surname Almond, and they all pronounce it AHH-mund. Yes, people DO say they’re nuts 🙂
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### Author:  [@Suburban\_Plankton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suburban_Plankton)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2013, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-where-did-i-pick-up-this-us-regional-pronunciation-of-almond/632093/92 "2013-12-22T20:12:52Z")
I’ve lived in Sacramento for 46+ years, and everyone I know pronounces it “all-mund”, except for my brother-in-law, who grew up in a small farming town in the Central Valley. He says “am-mund”.
The Blue Diamond Growers (the ‘can a week’ people), who are based here in Sacramento, pronounce it “all-mund” in their commercials. Considering they sell a billion dollars worth of the things every year, that’s about as authoritative a position as you’re likely to get. 🙂
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### Author:  [@grandi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grandi)
#### Post date: [December 1, 2014, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-where-did-i-pick-up-this-us-regional-pronunciation-of-almond/632093/93 "2014-12-01T20:06:21Z")
Brought up in UK and Australia. Always pronounced almonds with silent L! Taught that way at school. Oxford and Cambridge dictionaries have primary pronunciation with silent L. However certain American English dialects have come in with common usage and it’s correct to pronounce with the L too as an alternative. Must admit it still grates with me hearing it with the L! Had almond trees in my garden in Aussie and never heard a soul pronouncing the L! Guess its just the evolution of language!!
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### Author:  [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)
#### Post date: [December 2, 2014, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-where-did-i-pick-up-this-us-regional-pronunciation-of-almond/632093/94 "2014-12-02T00:52:55Z")
Pronunciations with ‘l’, according to the OED, are spelling pronunciations. The word comes ultimately from Latin _amygdala_, an almond, and in French it’s still _amande_. The ‘l’ is later introduction, possibly reflecting “contamination from the final syllable of the Latin word”. The function of the ‘l’ may have been to indicate that the ‘a’ has the same value as in talk, walk, etc, until at some point people started voicing the ‘l’. According to the OED pronunciations with and without a voiced ‘l’ are both standard in both the UK and the US.
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### Author:  [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)
#### Post date: [December 2, 2014, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-where-did-i-pick-up-this-us-regional-pronunciation-of-almond/632093/95 "2014-12-02T02:39:02Z")
> [@Bozuit](#):
>
> I’ve only noticed people beginning to pronounce the L in the last 10 years or less. I assumed it was some kind of hypercorrection.
I have always said “ahlmnd” and was eating Almond Joys 65 years ago (in Philadelphia).
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### Author:  [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)
#### Post date: [December 2, 2014, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-where-did-i-pick-up-this-us-regional-pronunciation-of-almond/632093/96 "2014-12-02T03:09:26Z")
This thread is a little old, but why not add data…
This native Sacramentan pronounces it something like “Ahl-min”. The “l” is there, but just barely.
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### Author:  [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)
#### Post date: [December 2, 2014, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-where-did-i-pick-up-this-us-regional-pronunciation-of-almond/632093/97 "2014-12-02T03:24:21Z")
I have an accent with a mix of north and south NJ features and often pronounce it as “Al-mon”, dropping the d. “Al” is like the name, and “mon” is the first syllable in “Monday”. Sometimes I do pronounce the d. I never drop the l.
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### Author:  [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)
#### Post date: [December 2, 2014, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-where-did-i-pick-up-this-us-regional-pronunciation-of-almond/632093/98 "2014-12-02T03:36:30Z")
> [@drewtwo99](#):
>
> An historian is correct. The rule is that ‘an’ precedes a noun when it begins with a vowel sound, or when it begins with an h if the stress falls on the 2nd syllable of the word.
>
> Historian has the stress in the 2nd syllable, so it gets an ‘an’ before it. Ex: I heard a story from an historian the other day that blew my mind.
>
> Hipster has the stress in the 1st syllable, so it gets an ‘a’ before it. Ex: I saw a hipster the other day wearing skinny jeans.
>
> That’s the rule as I learned it anyway.
But… But… But… I also sometimes hear it said “an” before the word humble, as in “I am an humble person” (wherein the word “humble” tends to be pronounced “umble”). I think the only real rule here is whether there is a tendency to drop the initial h sound. I think you could pronounce it “an historian” if you tend to slur the two words together and drop the h, or “a historian” if you tend to pronounce the h. Same with humble.
As for almond, I always though the “l” was pronounced, either is “AWL-mund” or “AHL-mund”, or possibly (somewhat yuckily) as “al-mond” with al is in pal.
I pronounce the “l” in calm, balm, and palm, but not in walk, talk, or chalk. But it’s a weak sort of l that is more like the l at the end of a syllable, not at all like the l at the beginning of a syllable.
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### Author:  [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)
#### Post date: [December 2, 2014, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-where-did-i-pick-up-this-us-regional-pronunciation-of-almond/632093/99 "2014-12-02T03:44:55Z")
And salmon does rhyme with falmon (for certain ways of saying falmon).
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### Author:  [@brujaja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brujaja)
#### Post date: [December 3, 2014, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ok-where-did-i-pick-up-this-us-regional-pronunciation-of-almond/632093/100 "2014-12-03T03:11:12Z")
My Dad says “ammond.” He’s a native San Franciscan; but his parents were an Italian from New Jersey and a German from Germany. Your guess is as good as mine.
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