Salt = Solt not Sawlt: well, that's all right then

[pne]

I pronounce salt with the LOT vowel and have wondered whether I “should” be pronouncing it with the THOUGHT vowel.

Then I read today's entry in John Wells’s phonetic blog, which is really about something else but mentions, as an aside, that the proportion of people using LOT in salt rises the younger the speakers in question are. So if I consider myself a “younger” speaker, then that means that it’s not unusual at all for me to have LOT in that word.

So that’s good then.

Comments

[ewx]

I’ll have to listen more carefully, it’d not occurred to me that the vowel in salt might be pronounced other than /ɒ/! It’s how I pronounce many of the others he mentions, though /ɔ/ doesn't feel unnatural for alter in particular. I think I have /ɒ/ for extol and bolster too.

[pne]

I think I have GOAT in extol but LOT in bolster (but then, I'm not sure I've ever heard that word spoken, so it wouldn't be surprising if I guessed the "wrong" pronunciation from the spelling).

I'm also not sure how I "ought to" pronounce "bolt"; I waffle between LOT and GOAT. (I think I would naturally tend to use LOT but feel that it "ought" to have GOAT. I should, perhaps, look it up.)

[ewx]

bolt rhymes with LOT for me. GOAT would sound wrong but then apparently I'd not noticed that 43% pronounce salt differently to me so we shouldn't put too much store in that l-)