[Ads-l] cal-ving

[Laurence Horn]

Maybe it’s the law of conservation of /l/s.  I’ve noticed that British speakers, at least the ones who narrate my audiobooks, avoid pronouncing the (first) /l/ in “vulnerable”.  I agree with the suggestion in your last sentence—“calving” is probably opaque when applied to glaciers, especially for those who didn’t grow up on a farm or ranch.  

LH



> On Sep 13, 2019, at 8:39 PM, Stanton McCandlish <smccandlish at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> There's at least one British accent in which the *l* in *calf* is
> pronounced (e.g., listen to the song "The Golden Calf" by Prefab Sprout,
> 1988), but I've never heard a North American say it as "callf".  Maybe
> someone's overcorrecting, not recognizing *calving* as derived from *calf*,
> and thinking instead of names like *Calvin* and *Calvary*.
> 
> On Fri, Sep 13, 2019, 4:32 PM David Daniel <dad at coarsecourses.com> wrote:
> 
>> CNN reporter, about a big-ass chunk of glacier calving in Alaska,
>> definitely
>> called it cal-ving. WTF? Is that a one-off, a trend, a movement, a
>> rebellion, a sea change, or we don't know?
>> David
>> 
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> 
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