> Contributor Y.I. has pointed out to me that the ANAE Ch. 2, p. 14 had
also observed this phenomenon: “Words with vocalized /l/ formed a
part of this class: calm, palm, balm, almond, though a large number of
North Americans have retained or restored the /l/.” Like me, they
are apparently unsure whether the “l” was retained or restored,
and unfortunately they have not provided any help about the regional
distribution. (In this book, also found by Y.I., the assumption is simply
made that these “l”s are retained because of spelling pronunciations,

> If this is a conservative feature, then it must have been brought over
to the U.S. from some region of Great Britain or Ireland. However, there
is almost no trace of this “l” anywhere in this area, not even in
Scotland or Ireland, from which many of the conservative features in
American English came. However, my trusty contributor Y.I. has been able
to track down one possible source: what is called the West Country of
England (really the extreme southwest) apparently continues to pronounce
this “l”, according to John Wells in The Accents of English, page

> In any case, the retention of this “l” thus does not seem to depend
on whether or not “cot”=“caught”, since it occurs across the
continent. However, I am fairly certain that all speakers who are
systematic r-droppers always lack the “l” in the “calm” group,
and that all speakers with the father-bother distinction do too. This
makes sense, since the resulting vowel is /ä/, which mainly occurs
as the result of r-dropping. It is less clear why the “yolk” group
would drop the “l” for this group, since the resulting vowel /ō/

> The current name "Bristol" derives from the Old English form Brycgstow,
typically etymologised as 'place at the bridge';[13] "the place called
Bridge by the place called Stow" has also been suggested, the Stow in
question referring to an early religious meeting place at what is now
College Green.[14] However, other derivations have been proposed.[15]
The form Bricstow prevailed until 1204,[16] and the Bristolian 'L' (the
tendency for the local dialect to add the sound "L" to many words ending