# Salmon: pronunciation



## Iglemos

Hello!

Some dozens years ago I was taught to say salmon as [`sɑ:mən], but today I found that nearly all my dictionaries use [`sæmən]. Is the first variant wrong? Has anything changed? 

Thank you in advance.


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## Halloway

I've never heard it pronounced any other way than [`sæmən].


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## JamesM

Halloway said:


> I've never heard it pronounced any other way than [`sæmən].


 
This is how I would pronounce it, too. The only variant I have heard is a pronounced "L", but that sounds a bit unusual to me on the rare occasions that I hear it. The vowel sound (in American English) is only [`sæmən], in my experience.

If I heard [`sɑ:mən] I would expect it to be spelled "sawmen", which is a completely different word.


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## Carrie2

Halloway said:


> I've never heard it pronounced any other way than [`sæmən].


I agree.


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## Iglemos

May it be that then I was taught to an outdated way of pronunciation? Meanwhile, I found "Webster's Unabridged 3". There the following is written:

salmon \ˈsamən _sometimes_ ˈsäm- or ˈsa^m-\

[explication:]

*a* - m*a*t, m*a*p

*ä* - b*o*ther, c*o*t; most American speakers have the same vowel in f*a*ther, c*a*rt 

*a^* - f*a*ther as pronounced by speakers who do not rhyme it with b*o*ther; f*ar*ther and c*ar*t as pronounced by _r_-droppers


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## se16teddy

The OED suggests only /'sæmən/, though I would have said it was /'sæmʌn/.


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## mplsray

Iglemos said:


> May it be that then I was taught to an outdated way of pronunciation? Meanwhile, I found "Webster's Unabridged 3". There the following is written:
> 
> salmon \ˈsamən _sometimes_ ˈsäm- or ˈsa^m-\
> 
> [explication:]
> 
> *a* - m*a*t, m*a*p
> 
> *ä* - b*o*ther, c*o*t; most American speakers have the same vowel in f*a*ther, c*a*rt
> 
> *a^* - f*a*ther as pronounced by speakers who do not rhyme it with b*o*ther; f*ar*ther and c*ar*t as pronounced by _r_-droppers


 
Webster's Third has by far the most pronunciation variants of any English-language dictionary, which would explain why it would have such an obscure variant.

For a historical perspective, The Century Dictionary of 1895, an American dictionary, has only the pronunciation with the vowel of _hat._


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## boozer

salmon /'sæmən/
Salmon (_surname_) /'sæmən/, /'sælmən/, /'sɑːmən/
This is according to Daniel Jones, late professor of phonetics in the University of London, who, in my country at least, is considered to be the ultimate authority in his field. 

I was totally amazed that your teachers and my teachers should share this same fallacious notion about the same word.  

Indeed, I've never heard /'sæmən/ pronounced in any other way and this pronunciation has somehow grown on me over the years. I must confess, though, that until only a few minutes ago, I earnestly believed /'sɑːmən/ to be a legitimate British way of pronouncing the word.


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## Loob

I've never heard /'sɑ:mən/ for salmon; I've only heard /'sæmən/.


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## johndot

The pronunciation of a surname should _never_ be used as a pattern for the pronunciation of other nouns; they can be, and often are, very different.


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## ConorBieber

Is the letter "l" pronounced in "salmon"?


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## AlanT

No, it is silent.


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## natkretep

<<Moderator note: ConorBieber's question merged with an earlier thread>>


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## Pedro y La Torre

It is, however, pronounced in a word like salmonella.


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## chamyto

I have the same problem like my partners. How can manage to pronounce the "a" in a short way instead of long ? I'm pronouncing _salmon_ once and again and /a:/ appears unconciously.


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## natkretep

I actually do hear /ˈsɑːmən/ a fair bit here. (I say /ˈsæmən/ myself.) I don't know where it comes from. Is the salm in salmon analogised to psalm or palm (for both of which I have /ɑː/)?


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## chamyto

Thanks, Natkretep.


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## JamesM

chamyto said:


> I have the same problem like my partners. How can manage to pronounce the "a" in a short way instead of long ? I'm pronouncing _salmon_ once and again and /a:/ appears unconciously.



Since the "l" is silent, can you picture it spelled as "Sam-on" and say the first part like the name "Sam" (which has the short "a")?  Just a thought.


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## merquiades

JamesM said:


> Since the "l" is silent, can you picture it spelled as "Sam-on" and say the first part like the name "Sam" (which has the short "a")?  Just a thought.


Agreed.  No "l" and the first syllable rhymes with "Sam".  Personally I'd swallow a bit more the second syllable though:  'Sam-un.  "Un" as the first syllable of "undo".  In IPA I suppose it's this one: /'sæmʌn/.


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## JamesM

I agree.  I would say the last part as "un", too.  I was just trying to stay close to the original spelling.


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## Keith Bradford

/ˈsæmən/ is the only way I would have dreamt of pronouncing it, though in recent years I can imagine that it might be (wrongly) influenced by the name of the Scottish First Minister, Alex Salmond /ˈsælmənd/.


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## Resa Reader

salm·on *[ˈsæmən]

*This is the pronunciation that I use and I also told my students not to pronounce the "l".

A student of mine told me today that an English friend of hers pronounces the word as [ˈsælmən]. 

Does anyone of you pronounce the "l"? It would surprise me - but one lives and learns. )


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## PaulQ

Yes, I've heard *[ˈsælmən]*. The 'l' is barely there, but audible. I'll be corrected if I am wrong, but I seem to remember that it was from a person with an East Coast Scots accent.


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## Copyright

I think your last name has to be Rushdie to pronounce the "l."


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## Resa Reader

Copyright said:


> I think your last name has to be Rushdie to pronounce the "l."



I like that. )


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## Andygc

Rule 1 is "search first". Now merged with the other thread on pronouncing "salmon".


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## Resa Reader

Andygc said:


> Rule 1 is "search first". Now merged with the other thread on pronouncing "salmon".



Yes, I should know. J just didn't think about it this time. :-(


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## sound shift

Resa Reader said:


> Does anyone of you pronounce the "l"? It would surprise me - but one lives and learns. )


I don't pronounce it, and I don't recall ever hearing it pronounced.


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## sdgraham

sound shift said:


> I don't pronounce it, and I don't recall ever hearing it pronounced.



Nor do we out here in salmon country.


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## MarcB

The l is silent for most speakers. Those who do pronounce it, it is likely hyper-correction due to spelling.


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## daniar

Wiktionary gives / 'sɑ(ː)m(ə)n/ as a variant pronunciation and suggests /'sælm(ə)n/ is used in some Southern US accents. http://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/salmon.  I am not sure if the site is reliable or not and I've never heard any native speaker use /ɑː/ in this word either, even though my English teacher also transcribed it this way. However, I've definitely heard a girl from Texas who pronounced the l. It was an 'accent challenge' video on YouTube and she said the word more than once, each time pronouncing the l and saying how surprised she was people didn't pronounce it 'even though it's written'. Natkretep says he/she has heard the word pronunced with the long 'ah' sound, the M-W has this pronunciation. Perhaps,  we shouldn't be so certain this pronunciation is fallacious and nobody uses it. After all, until a couple of months ago, I believed no native speaker would ever say /'æ/aksli/, all the members of the forum who answered also believed this pronunciation didn't exist, but I heard it not once but a couple of times from different people(natives, of course). When it comes to pronunciation in English, you can never be completely sure, in my opinion!


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## JamesM

> /'æ/aksli/,




What word does this represent?


There are many pronunciations that you can find if you look hard enough.  I think the question might be... how "quirky" would that pronunciation sound to the average native speaker?  It might sound normal in south Texas but that is a small corner of the English-speaking world.


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## Dennis Moore

You guys should check out the accent tag on YouTube. It's a meme that became popular a while ago and it consists of people from different parts of the English-speaking world reading a list of words that are pronounced differently depending on where you're from. Salmon was one of them.


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## daniar

/'æ/aksli/ represents 'actually'.


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## Shadiac

English Wiktionary states the following:

(US) IPA(key): /ˈsæmən/
(Southern American English, sometimes) IPA(key): /ˈsælmən/
(Canada) IPA(key): /ˈsɑmən/

So, my guess would be the third variant is widely distributed in Canada, more likely - the Western provinces (AB, BC), as those tend to use /ɑ/ instead of /æ/ a lot ( /ˈɑ(l).mənd/ vs /ˈæ(l).mənd/,  /ˈɹɑːskl̩/ vs /ˈɹæskl̩/, etc.). I have to say, however, that since my mother tongue isn't English, I've always been saying /ˈsɑlmən/ and frankly, no one ever corrected me here in Quebec =)


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## MagEditor

It's definitely /ˈsæmən/ in the American Midwest. 

But if you went to a restaurant here and asked for /ˈsɑmən/, I can't imagine anyone failing to understand you.


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## dojibear

Shadiac said:


> I've always been saying /ˈsɑlmən/ and frankly, no one ever corrected me here in Quebec


Have you asked them to correct your pronunciation? If you didn't ask, it would be rude for them to correct you.

If they know what you mean, it doesn't matter how you say it. There is a wide variety of pronunciations in the US and Canada. And there are many people here who speak English as a second language. So we are used to hearing and understanding a wide variety of pronunciations.

That's all a "foreign accent" is: pronouncing things oddly, despite knowing English well. Even native speakers have an accent. I would rather talk (in English) to someone from Russia than someone from Louisiana.


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## Pedro y La Torre

Shadiac said:


> English Wiktionary states the following:
> 
> (US) IPA(key): /ˈsæmən/
> (Southern American English, sometimes) IPA(key): /ˈsælmən/
> (Canada) IPA(key): /ˈsɑmən/
> 
> So, my guess would be the third variant is widely distributed in Canada, more likely - the Western provinces (AB, BC), as those tend to use /ɑ/ instead of /æ/ a lot ( /ˈɑ(l).mənd/ vs /ˈæ(l).mənd/,  /ˈɹɑːskl̩/ vs /ˈɹæskl̩/, etc.). I have to say, however, that since my mother tongue isn't English, I've always been saying /ˈsɑlmən/ and frankly, no one ever corrected me here in Quebec =)



Québec is a French-speaking province. Even if many speak English well, it's not their native language (save the relatively small Anglophone minority) and they may be wary of trying to correct you. I have never heard any native speaker say /ˈsɑlmən/.


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## Shadiac

dojibear said:


> Have you asked them to correct your pronunciation? If you didn't ask, it would be rude for them to correct you.


Well, I was born in Moscow, and despite the younger populations being more liberal about correcting others, many Russians still consider it socially acceptable and, to some degree, even educating. I'm well aware that it isn't like that here in Canada. Personally, I wouldn't have minded, as looking back to the way I was saying it all the time, I do feel silly.



Pedro y La Torre said:


> Even if many speak English well, it's not their native language (save the relatively small Anglophone minority)


Actually, I believe it's something like 20-25%, and while it is a minority, the 23 years I spent in Montreal made me realize that more often native French speakers spoke English better than native English speakers did speak French.


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## dojibear

It's that pesky only-partly-phonetic English spelling. Adult learners of English may see "salmon" written many times, and remember it that way. Why wouldn't you say it that way?

People who grew up speaking English heard the spoken /sæmən/ many times before they saw the written word. "Mommy, why is there an L in that word?" 

I know I did. Every Tuesday, dinner was /sæmən/, mashed potatoes and peez.


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## Shadiac

In that case we certainly bypass the whole native/non-native rhetoric as any learner of English via another language would fall into the first category, as I myself did when I saw the L in there and automatically presumed its pronunciation to be akin to "salt" and "almonds".


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## kentix

I hate to upset your applecart.

*Almond*​UK:*/ˈɑːmənd/​
WordReference Random House Learner's Dictionary of American English © 2021​al•mond _/ˈɑmənd, ˈæmənd/_​


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## Shadiac

I know, but... read above


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## AutumnOwl

kentix said:


> I hate to upset your applecart.
> 
> *Almond*
> UK:*/ˈɑːmənd/
> 
> WordReference Random House Learner's Dictionary of American English © 2021
> al•mond _/ˈɑmənd, ˈæmənd/_


But if you speak (or try to speak) UK-RP, then the L is pronounced.


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## Wordy McWordface

AutumnOwl said:


> But if you speak (or try to speak) UK-RP, then the L is pronounced.


No, it isn't!


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## ewie

How you pronounce _almond_ in BrE depends on how you pronounce _almond_ ~ I've heard at least five different pronunciations over the years


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## JulianStuart

Shadiac said:


> In that case we certainly bypass the whole native/non-native rhetoric as any learner of English via another language would fall into the first category, as I myself did when I saw the L in there and automatically presumed its pronunciation to be akin to "salt" and "almonds".


Unless they were learning in_ conversation _with native speakers, rather than learning it, and its pronunciation, based on its spelling 
I don't pronounce the l in almond, calm or palm but I do sound the first l in salmonella (presumably due to the stress shift).


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## Shadiac

JulianStuart said:


> I don't pronounce the l in almond, calm or palm but I do sound the first l in salmonella (presumably due to the stress shift).


I actually pronounce the L in all of those your mentioned. It's a "dark L", though, but when I hear myself talk it is heard. In fact, the only L in the English _al-consonant_ phoneme I could think of that I deliberately see and don't pronounce is the one in _Ralph Finnes_. Because he wants people to call him "ray-f" =)


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## MagEditor

There's also a silent L in words like "half" and "calf." 

As for "almond," maybe it's a U.S. thing or a U.S. Midwest thing, but I pronounce the first syllable the same as I do the first syllable in "olive."


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## Shadiac

Yeah, those too. Anyway, where I live people say "All-monds", not "aye-monds" or "awe-monds".


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## JulianStuart

Shadiac said:


> I actually pronounce the L in all of those your mentioned. It's a "dark L", though, but when I hear myself talk it is heard. In fact, the only L in the English _al-consonant_ phoneme I could think of that I deliberately see and don't pronounce is the one in _Ralph Finnes_. Because he wants people to call him "ray-f" =)


For me, and apparently many commenters above and the dictionaries, that would make your accent as "non-native". How about calf and half?  I do hear almond with an l in some places but don't think I've heard a speaker where all the ls in -alX- (where X is a consonant) - are sounded.
Ralph is a name, and like Salmon, may be pronounced in various ways, depending on the owner's preference (or their parents)  There have been some quite famous Ralphs (said as rafes) and the last name Fiennes would be {edit= not} expected to sound like Fines, based on spelling.


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## Shadiac

Actually no, it wouldn't. I've seen a several page topic discussion about this on another forum, wherein the majority voted in favor of pronouncing it like "Finnis".

Also, in "calf" and "half", the A is near-closed, not near-open as in "wall", "tall", etc. So that's logical.


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## JulianStuart

Shadiac said:


> Actually no, it wouldn't. I've seen a several page topic discussion about this on another forum, wherein the majority voted in favor of pronouncing it like "Finnis".


I accidentally omitted the "not" - I've edited it now.  Of course Fines is not necessarily what you would get by "spelling" pronunciation, although Fie (as a word) on its own would get you there For Ralph, it is the spelling that is unusual, rather than the pronunciation


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## Shadiac

Wouldn't he spell something like "R as in Robert, A as in Adam, L as in Larry, P as in Peter, H as in Hector", and then say "No, it's not Ralph. It's Rayf"?


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## JulianStuart

Shadiac said:


> Wouldn't he spell something like "R as in Robert, A as in Adam, L as in Larry, P as in Peter, H as in Hector", and then say "No, it's not Ralph. It's Rayf"?


If he was telling people how to write his name, of course that is how he would describe it - nothing odd about how _that_ is done. English spelling is notorious for being non-intuitive or out of sync with pronunciation. GB Shaw is reported to have created the ghoti spelling for fish


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## Pedro y La Torre

Shadiac said:


> Actually, I believe it's something like 20-25%, and while it is a minority, the 23 years I spent in Montreal made me realize that more often native French speakers spoke English better than native English speakers did speak French.



The Anglophone population (i.e. those for whom English is their mother tongue) is 599,230 people (7.7 percent of the population) according to the last census. While many French Canadians (particularly in Montreal) speak excellent English, they are, nevertheless, second-language speakers.




ewie said:


> How you pronounce _almond_ in BrE depends on how you pronounce _almond_ ~ I've heard at least five different pronunciations over the years



Agreed. I generally would pronounce the L here (I think) but without the L sounds perfectly fine too.


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## Wordy McWordface

Shadiac said:


> Yeah, those too. Anyway, where I live people say "All-monds", not "aye-monds" or "awe-monds".



'_Aye-monds_'? Really? Like '_Aye-men_ to that'?  Now, that is unusual. I've never heard anyone say _aye-monds._

In both standard BrE English and standard AmE , the L in 'almond' is silent (_ah-mund _in BrE, with the same _ah _as in 'calm' 'half' and 'palm').

There are some people who say _all-munds, ahl-munds _or_ awl-munds _(like 'almoner', perhaps?) but nobody pronounces the L in 'calm' 'half' and 'palm'. Not even a dark L.  So, while it's OK for someone to say _all-munds _if they wish - especially if everyone around them is saying _all-munds - _there is no such latitude when it comes to 'calm', 'half' and 'palm'. There are various different regional variants on the vowel in 'calm', 'half' and 'palm', but none of them have an L sound. I can see the temptation for a Russian speaker to pronounce these with a dark L, based on the spelling, but it really isn't correct! It's a non-native error, like pronouncing the B at the end of 'lamb'.

There is likewise no latitude when it comes to 'salmon'. While the L is pronounced in Salman Rushdie, salmonella and salmagundi, it is not pronounced in salmon:  it's always _samm-un.  _Pronouncing the L in 'salmon' is always wrong - or at least very non-standard.  Canadians are polite folks, which is probably why nobody has ever corrected Shadiac's pronunciation of 'salmon' or 'calm'.


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## Shadiac

Pedro y La Torre said:


> The Anglophone population (i.e. those for whom English is their mother tongue) is 599,230 people (7.7 percent of the population) according to the last census. While many French Canadians (particularly in Montreal) speak excellent English, they are, nevertheless, second-language speakers.


I'm not contesting the census, I'm just saying that the "milieu" French-Canadian Montrealers live in has a lot of English influences (now with the globalization and whatnot). As result, children in French speaking families basically learn English alongside French, I know a girl whose parents are both Quebecois and she was fluent in English at the age of three because they used to live in a predominantly English-speaking neighborhood. The English-Canadian families, on the other hand, rarely have access to French that early on because they live in isolated communities. Therefore, most English mother-tonguers retain their basic knowledge of French well into adulthood, when they move out (and even then, a lot of them prefer moving to Ontario where, of course, native French is rather rare).



Wordy McWordface said:


> I can see the temptation for a Russian speaker to pronounce these with a dark L, based on the spelling, but it really isn't correct! It's a non-native error, like pronouncing the B at the end of 'lamb'.
> 
> There is likewise no latitude when it comes to 'salmon'. While the L is pronounced in Salman Rushdie, salmonella and salmagundi, it is not pronounced in salmon:  it's always _samm-un.  _Pronouncing the L in 'salmon' is always wrong - or at least very non-standard.  Canadians are polite folks, which is probably why nobody has ever corrected Shadiac's pronunciation of 'salmon' or 'calm'.


Actually, it would be even easier for the English-speaking Quebecois to *not* pronounce the L, since in French the fish is called _saumon_ (and reads like "saw-mong").

I normally pronounce _half_ and _calf_ as  /hæf/ and /cæf/ , and _calm_ and _palm_ as  /kɑlm/ and /pɑlm/ , respectively. And isn't the B in _Lamb of God_ also pronounced? Or is it "lam of god"?


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## JulianStuart

Shadiac said:


> And isn't the B in _Lamb of God_ also pronounced?  Or is it "lam of god"?


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