Does "almond" rhyme with hammond?

Question

I don't think so but sometimes hear it pronounced this way. What do you think?

Answer 1

almond* Modern readers of English are hostile to silent letters — as well they should be — so what linguists call "spelling pronunciations" proliferate in new readers of English and in willful people who see no reason a given letter "should" be silent. They see an L in a word like "almond" or "palm", and they pronounce it, even though that's not easy to do. They also back-form their pronunciation for "palm" from the way they hear the personal surname "Palmer" pronounced on television (as in the case of the professional golfer Arnold Palmer or former baseball player and present-day TV spokesman for a loan company Jim Palmer), which includes a sounded-L (Pól.mer). Once they have put a sounded-L before the M in "palm", they then use that pattern as the model for pronouncing the seemingly parallel word "almond". But the noun "palm" is not a back-formation from the surname "Palmer". If anything, the surname derives from the noun, and some "Palmers" do not pronounce the L. I too am hostile to silent letters, so am tempted to sound the L in words like "palm" and "almond". But I find doing so difficult and clumsy. It might be useful to employ both pronunciations in the case of "palm": without the L, for "part of the hand" and with the L, for the tree (or the other way around). A phonetic spelling system for English would enable authorities to mandate such a distinction, but without phonetic spelling few readers will be clear on when to use which pronunciation. At present, then, I recommend treating the L as silent in both senses of the word "palm" (pom always, not ever polm), as well as in the word "almond" (óm.and).

so the correct way to pronounce almond is oh-mend

but they still don't rhyme because the correct way to pronounce hammond is ham-uhnd

Answer 2

Yes it does. My sister and I went round and round over the way almond is pronounced.. so in the end we looked in up in the dictonary and she was right and it rhymes with hammond.

Answer 3

It depends on how you pronounce the word. With the L then no, without the L then yes.

Answer 4

Now that I think about it, it does rhyme. So, I say yes.

Answer 5

no it doesnt rhyme and yes some people do pronounce it wrong but naturally it doesnt

Answer 6

No it does rhyme

Answer 7

uh... no unless hammond is spelt like halmmond...y'know?

=]

Answer 8

nope they don't rhyme

Answer 9

Uhm...no. You couldn't get that just by saying them to yourself?

Answer 10

nope