pom/ palm

[Rudolph C Troike]

Having grown up among palm trees in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas,
I can assure you that no one there ever pronounced the <l> in <palm>,
which was always rendered with an /a/. Ditto for <almond>. But here in
Tucson, I hear some of the self-conscious newspersons on TV pronouncing an
/l/ in <palm> and <calm>.

Dale's comments about the low front [a] used in <palm> (of the hand)
in New England explains the folk-etymologized pronunciation of /paen/
found in the North; I once encountered it from a retired farmer in
west-central Illinois.

        Rudy