/bolth/ for both

[FRITZ JUENGLING]

>>> sagehen at WESTELCOM.COM 04/06/05 08:09AM >>>
 A. Murie wrote:
>I had an uncle (by marriage) who pronounced "almond" /aemond/ ("a" as in
"catch").

"a" as in "catch"?--so, [E]mond?  Seriously, I have been interested in the use of certain words to illustrate pronunciations where there may be significant variation.  Besides, 'catch' for /ae/, I've also seen 'get' for /I/.  Aren't people who use these words to illustrate the pronunciations of vowels (It's really not a problem on ADS-L, where most people have some understanding of language variation) aware that there are large numbers of people who have a different pronunciation and are not aware that there are others or consider other pronunciations odd? I am particularly thinking of dictionaries or other pronunciation keys (esp. made in the US for a US audience).  Yes, I realize that we will never have absolute agreement on pronunciation and I'm really not talking about the difference between entire categories of vowels, but single words, e.g. I have [ae] in hat, bat, cat, mat, hatch, match, latch, but [E] in catch.  So, it's not a good word to use for [ae].
AFA inorganic /l/ is concerned, I don't think 'withdrawl' belongs with 'bolth and polm'  Withdrawl is probably just a confusion of withdraw and withdrawl.  I remember hearing and saying bolth and polm as a kid.  I didn't perceive any acoustic backness, or lack thereof (that explanation has always, or shoud I say a'ways?, bothered me. )  I was also unaware as a young kid that English had lost /l/ in certain environments. I was certainly not on any crusade to restore /l/. I don't remember sticking an /l/ in any other words (BTW, I do have it in 'always')
Fritz J