# pronunciation: would could folk [ Silent L ]



## zzzwor

*would could folk*

The letter L is silenced before d or k in these words. Could you tell me why?


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## owlman5

I'm not sure that you will find this answer satisfactory, but I can tell you that English orthography is a nightmare. There are lots of ordinary words that have silent letters in them.

Native speakers like me basically inherit the words and resign ourselves to the idea that the spelling of a word often has little to do with how the word is pronounced.

Not that it matters, but there is a trace of an _L_ sound in my pronunciation of _folk. _This pronunciation may be somewhat unusual.


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## JulianStuart

Palm, calm and salmon are also examples of silent L.  Asking "why" is a bit like asking why kanji have the strokes they do - they just developed that way


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## dojibear

zzzwor said:


> The letter L is silenced before d or k in these words. Could you tell me why?


Many words are spelled the way they were pronounced 400 or 600 years ago. The sounds changed, but the _pronunciation_ spelling did not.

American school kids often have "spelling" lessons in grades 1 to 12.


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## Andygc

In reality, the "l" is not always silent. A person who I know well does sound the "l" in "folk".


owlman5 said:


> but there is a trace of an _L_ sound in my pronunciation of _folk. _This pronunciation may be somewhat unusual.


So owlman is not alone, although perhaps a little unusual. And my example is British, not American.


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## pimlicodude

Well, there is no L in the pronunciation of folk in standard British English. 
Falcon is another one, traditionally pronounced faucon, with no L (the first syllable is like the British pronunciation of "for"). But in my experience everyone under 50 pronounces the l (a bit of an anecdotal exaggeration). So some L's may creep back in, by way of reading pronunciations.
The L should be silent in almond, but I have met people from the north of England who pronounce it. Some Americans do seem to say the L in "calm", so I think that may be being restored, at least in the US, by way of a reading pronunciation.


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## bearded

dojibear said:


> but the pronunciation did not.


You mean ''but the spelling did not'', I suppose.


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## Andygc

pimlicodude said:


> Falcon is another one, traditionally pronounced faucon, with no L (the first syllable is like the British pronunciation of "for").


I wonder if this might be something typical of Pimlico and Chelsea English. I'm a quarter of a century past 50, have been to falconry demonstrations, have talked about falcons with people who work with them and have watched television programmes about birds of prey. I have never heard anybody say the word without at least a trace of an "l" being there. The OED doesn't appear to have found this variant either:


> Pronunciation:
> Brit. /ˈfɔː(l)k(ə)n/, /ˈfɒlk(ə)n/, /ˈfalk(ə)n/
> U.S. /ˈfælkən/





pimlicodude said:


> The L should be silent in almond


What do you mean by "should"? Is there some form of mandatory pronunciation?


> Pronunciation:
> Brit. /ˈɑː(l)mənd/, /ˈalmənd/, /ˈɒlmənd/
> U.S. /ˈɑ(l)mənd/, /ˈæ(l)mənd/


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## pimlicodude

Well, Andygc, your IPA of /ˈfɔː*(l)*k(ə)n/ shows the L can be dropped, which is why it is bracketed off in the OED. I've attached an image of the relevant page in Daniel Jones' Everyman's English Pronouncing Dictionary, 1917 edition. Professor Jones is a famous academic who worked in UCL and his dictionary is effectively a dictionary of conservative RP. As you can see, he says that those who practise falconry tend to drop the L. I say faucon, without an L, and I am decades younger than you. British English isn't just one thing. One of the British English speakers on the Forvo site illustrates "falcon", pronounced without the L.

You yourself note that British English is not one monolithic thing when you ask whether there is a mandatory pronunciation. There isn't. There is RP and conservative RP, which most people don't speak. Daniel Jones doesn't show any variant pronunciation of "almond"; he only gives the pronunciation without the L. If you're familiar with Nancy Mitford and her article on U and non-U English, then at least in the 1950s there was a pronunciation that was regarded as correct by the upper classes, and so it was "mandatory" for them, and they looked down on non-U pronunciations. Falcon and almond were both without the L in U English. Of course, it is not the 1950s anymore.


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## Edinburgher

pimlicodude said:


> Everyman's English Pronouncing Dictionary, *1917* edition.


You will surely appreciate that pronunciation practice may have evolved a bit in the intervening century.
It seems to me that those who practiced the sport back then  were a bunch of pretentious upper-class gits who  wanted to show off their knowledge that the word is derived from its French equivalent, which lacks the 'l' in both spelling and pronunciation.


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## pimlicodude

Edinburgher said:


> You will surely appreciate that pronunciation practice may have evolved a bit in the intervening century.
> It seems to me that those who practiced the sport back then  were a bunch of pretentious upper-class gits who  wanted to show off their knowledge that the word is derived from its French equivalent, which lacks the 'l' in both spelling and pronunciation.


Well, I did say it was conservative RP, allowing some leeway for someone to argue that there is a more progressive RP that is more common (although any type of RP is hard to find on the street). Alan Ross, in his famous article in 1953, Linguistic Class-Indicators in Present-Day English--the very essay that Nancy Mitford made reference to--stated that "falcon" without the L was old-fashioned U English.


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## PaulQ

The question as to why almond can be pronounced *ar*mond (as I do) or *al*mond (as my wife does) is answered in a good post in Stack Exchange


> *words with "l" followed by a labial consonant*
> Something similar would have occurred with [lf] [lv] [lm]. As with /lk/, we see no simplification of these clusters after _e_ or _i_: _elf, shelf, shelve, elm, helm, film_ and so on contain /l/. _Wolf_ represents Old English _wulf_ with respelling of _wu-_ to _wo-._
> 
> Words with "al" followed by a labial consonant show complicated developments. In some accents, such as British "Received Pronunciation", the _al_ in words like _half, halve, calm_ is pronounced as /ɑː/. This is not the usual outcome of the Middle English diphthong [aʊ], and it suggests that these words might have undergone an additional sound change, like [kalm] > [kaʊlm] > [kaʊm] > [kɑːm]. A change of [aʊ] to [aː] in this context might have been motivated by the fact that [ʊ] and labial consonants are both rounded, so the roundedness of [ʊ] might have been misinterpreted by a listener as just being part of the following consonant sound.
> 
> In American English, _half_ and _halve_ typically have /æ/, which could be the result of simplification of [aʊf] to [af] without lengthening. Something similar may have occurred in words such as _laugh(ter)_ and _draught/draft._ _Calm_ has a large variety of realizations in American English, some of which include an /l/.


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## Wordy McWordface

Just throwing a word in here for discussion:

SOLDER

Universally pronounced without the L in AmE and with the L in BrE, I believe.


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## Edinburgher

pimlicodude said:


> Alan Ross, in his famous article in 1953, Linguistic Class-Indicators in Present-Day English--the very essay that Nancy Mitford made reference to--stated that "falcon" without the L was old-fashioned U English.


Heh, heh. Well, there you go. Makes sense.


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## Wordy McWordface

As for "falcon", you can always go full on Cockney/Estuary and say "fawcon".  That'll keep everyone happy. Even Pimlicodude.


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## Andygc

pimlicodude said:


> Well, Andygc, your IPA of /ˈfɔː*(l)*k(ə)n/ shows the L can be dropped, which is why it is bracketed off in the OED.


Yes, fair comment. As it happens, the audio clip used to illustrate that form does not omit the "l".


Andygc said:


> What do you mean by "should"?


You have not answered that. Your use of "should" implies that two common British pronunciations of "almond" are wrong.

You appear to base your comments on what is or is not standard English on a type of English spoken by a small and shrinking minority of the population. Quoting Nancy Mitford as in some way supporting the 'rightness' of RP is a bit of an own goal - she was mocking linguistic snobbery.


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## RM1(SS)

JulianStuart said:


> Palm, calm and salmon are also examples of silent L.


_Palm_ and _calm_ aren't, for me.


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## JulianStuart

RM1(SS) said:


> _Palm_ and _calm_ aren't, for me.


I had intended to add "for some" but duty called. Sorry for any confuLsion


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## Roxxxannne

I pronounce _almond, palm, calm,_ and _salmon_ with a silent L, but I pronounce the L in the more Latinate words _salmonella _and _semipalmated_, as in the bird called the semipalmated plover, _Charadrius semipalmatus.  _

Fun obscure fact of the day No. 1: _semipalmated_ means _partly like a palm (of a hand) _and refers to the fact that the bird's feet are partly webbed.

Fun obscure fact of the day No. 2: Salmonella: "the genus name, coined 1900 in Modern Latin by Joseph Lignières, French-born Argentine bacteriologist, in reference to U.S. veterinary surgeon Daniel E. Salmon (1850-1914), who isolated a type of the bacteria in 1885."


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## JulianStuart

Roxxxannne said:


> I pronounce _almond, palm, calm,_ and _salmon_ with a silent L, but I pronounce the L in the more Latinate words _salmonella _and _semipalmated_, as in the bird called the semipalmated plover, _Charadrius semipalmatus.  _
> 
> Fun obscure fact of the day No. 1: _semipalmated_ means _partly like a palm (of a hand) _and refers to the fact that the bird's feet are partly webbed.
> 
> Fun obscure fact of the day No. 2: Salmonella: "the genus name, coined 1900 in Modern Latin by Joseph Lignières, French-born Argentine bacteriologist, in reference to U.S. veterinary surgeon Daniel E. Salmon (1850-1914), who isolated a type of the bacteria in 1885."


 I love fun facts.

Oh, and one more thing, how did he pronounce his own name ?


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## Roxxxannne

Good question. I'd like to think he said Danny Sammin, but that's probably not right.


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## RM1(SS)

I read somewhere that he pronounced the '_L_' -- hence the pronunciation of _salmonella_.


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## RM1(SS)

Roxxxannne said:


> I pronounce _almond, palm, calm,_ and _salmon_ with a silent L,


I pronounce the 'L' in _almond_, too.  And before anyone asks, I also pronounce the one in _balm_.


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## Roxxxannne

Why _too_?


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## RM1(SS)

In addition to those in _palm_ and _calm_ (post #17).


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## heypresto

What about 'alms', 'psalms', 'embalms' and 'qualms'? And 'realms'?


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## Roxxxannne

The problem with _balm_ is that to some, _balm_ and _bomb_ are homonyms, which makes the lyrics of "There is a Balm in Gilead" sound bizarre, if not horrible.  Biblical Gilead (Jer. 8:22) is roughly northwest Jordan today.


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## Edinburgher

Roxxxannne said:


> Fun obscure fact of the day No. 1: _semipalmated_ means _partly like a palm (of a hand) _and refers to the fact that the bird's feet are partly webbed.


I had hoped it might have been something about half a bird being in your palm, where it's worth as much as a whole bird in the bush.


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## RM1(SS)

Edinburgher said:


> I had hoped it might have been something about half a bird being in your palm, where it's worth as much as a whole bird in the bush.


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## RM1(SS)

heypresto said:


> What about 'alms', 'psalms', 'embalms' and 'qualms'?


I pronounce those as well.


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## Wordy McWordface

Roxxxannne said:


> The problem with _balm_ is that to some, _balm_ and _bomb_ are homonyms, which makes the lyrics of "There is a Balm in Gilead" sound bizarre, if not horrible.  Biblical Gilead (Jer. 8:22) is roughly northwest Jordan today.


In non-rhotic BrE, _balm_ and _barm_ are homophones.

The UK is a land of countless accents, and almost as many names for baked goods. Without any exaggeration, you can drive across the UK, taking a break every two hours, and every time you stop you will encounter a completely different local accent and a different name for a bread roll.  Once you hit northern England, you'll meet this, known as a barm cake or barm:






I'm sure that many a Lancashire or Yorkshire child attending Sunday school wondered what the 'wounded hole' was and how a bread roll could make this.  And as for its ability to 'heel the sin-sick sole'... something to do with shoemending, perhaps?


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## boozer

Wordy McWordface said:


> ... _balm_ and _barm_ are homophones.


I lived happily for many years, safe and sound in the knowledge that _balm_ was one of the few words that had no homophone. And now you have spoiled it for me...


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## Edinburgher

boozer said:


> And now you have spoiled it for me...


Does the same go for _alm_ and _arm_?

-- 
_There's no way I can afford an electric car.  They cost an almond a leg._


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## boozer

Oh, no, Ed, I have always known _alms_  (for the poor).
Well, long enough to not remember when and how I picked it up...


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## Roxxxannne

Wordy McWordface said:


> In non-rhotic BrE, _balm_ and _barm_ are homophones.
> 
> The UK is a land of countless accents, and almost as many names for baked goods. Without any exaggeration, you can drive across the UK, taking a break every two hours, and every time you stop you will encounter a completely different local accent and a different name for a bread roll.  Once you hit northern England, you'll meet this, known as a barm cake or barm:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I'm sure that many a Lancashire or Yorkshire child attending Sunday school wondered what the 'wounded hole' was and how a bread roll could make this.  And as for its ability to 'heel the sin-sick sole'... something to do with shoemending, perhaps?


But for children in (coastal) Scarborough, the line about resuscitating a pet fish: "... revives my sole again."


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## Wordy McWordface

Indeed.  Miracle of the loaves and fishes.


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## Minnesota Guy

I'm not sure if this was mentioned yet, but according to this webpage, there never was an /l/ sound pronounced in the word 'could'.

Instead, people looked at the words 'would' and 'should' (which once did contain the sound), and added a letter <l> to 'could' for consistency.


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## dojibear

Andygc said:


> at least a trace of an "l" being there


I like the idea of "a trace". Sometimes I can't tell: did I hear an L, or did I not hear an L?

It seems likely that the L semi-consonant changes the sound of the vowel before it, just as the R semi-consonant changes the sound of the vowel before it (see "R-colored vowel" in Wikipedia).


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## RM1(SS)

Wordy McWordface said:


> barm cake


Is it really made with barm?


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## Wordy McWordface

RM1(SS) said:


> Is it really made with barm?


Traditionally, yes.  But I suspect they're made with ordinary commercial raising agents these days.


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## Keith Bradford

Nobody's mentioned Ralph/Rafe Vaughan Williams.  Or half/ha'pennies.  /l/ is certainly a movable feast.


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## zzzwor

I found it worth reading about this topic.


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