A Bonus Letter L for Sayers of “Both” as “Bolth”

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Nancy Starr from Omaha, Nebraska.

Hey, Nancy, welcome. What’s on your mind today?

I’ve lived in Omaha for a little over 30 years,

And there’s a pronunciation of a word that I’m curious about.

The word is both, as in either or or both.

And it seems like there’s an L that gets added to it,

So it’s pronounced both around here.

So I wondered where that came from, if it’s a regional thing, if it’s a dialect that’s particular to my city.

I don’t know.

So the word B-O-T-H sounds like it has an L in it, as if it’s spelled B-O-L-T-H.

Yes, that’s what I’m saying.

And I teach middle school, and I have had, not often, but sometimes, kids spell it B-O-L-T-H.

Oh, that’s good.

Because of the way…

That’s good evidence that they’re hearing it.

Because one of the interesting things about dialect features, just like this one, is sometimes the people who have dialect features don’t know that they have them.

And so you’ll say, oh, you say both with an L, and they’re like, no, I don’t.

You’re like, no, you do.

I’ve said that before.

Do you say it, Nancy?

No, I don’t.

I wasn’t raised around here, so it’s just not part of the way that I speak.

And do people where you’re originally from say it at all?

They say B-O-T-H.

B-O-T-H.

Yeah, I grew up near St. Louis.

Okay, that’s where I’m from.

But you’d be surprised to hear that now people do sometimes say both near St. Louis.

Okay.

Yeah.

It’s not exclusive to Omaha, and it’s not exclusive to a particular age group or any part of the country.

About 10% of the population self-reports, that is, they claim that they say it,

Although the number might be much higher because, as I said,

It’s one of those dialect features that people may have without realizing it.

And the reason we know that it’s about 10% of the population says that they say that

Is because when we first talked about this pronunciation of B-O-T-H both on the show,

I created a survey and put it online.

How do you say both?

Do you say both?

B-O-L-T-H.

And I have that data, and that survey is still running.

And it has about 2,500 responses where people include where they consider themselves to be from

And where they currently are.

And again, it’s very consistent.

About 10% repeatedly say that they say it.

So it’s not bad data.

And so what that is called is an intrusive L.

There are a number of different sounds that we can accidentally make because of the way that we shape our mouths.

Either the tongue does something or the lips do something or it’s just the accident because sound A follows sound B or what have you.

A few linguists have looked into this.

There’s a linguist, Brian Gick.

I think I’ve talked about him on the show before.

And he mentions that it’s widespread.

And so you will hear it from the northeast in the United States all the way through the Midwest.

It’s not as common in the south, but you will hear it.

And you will hear it all the way to the west, to California.

And it’s not as common in the northwest.

Maybe we’ll get people listening and they’ll go and they’ll take the survey.

So we’ll get more respondents.

We’ll find out if it truly is approximately 10%.

Yeah, yeah.

2,500 is a pretty good sample size.

But it’s a little skewed because it’s skewed to our listeners.

And so it’s not a true sample of the United States.

Nancy, I’m wondering if any of your students ever write out the word drawing, you know, for drawing with an L in that.

Oh, you know, they really don’t.

And I have heard them say it.

I have.

But they themselves don’t hear that they’re saying it.

Interesting.

Well, we love educators on this show.

So thank you very much for educating our people and bringing up the kids to be smart and interested in the world.

Yeah, bring us another field report sometime.

I love calling.

Thank you.

Thanks for taking my question.

Take care, Nancy.

Be well.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

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