Asklemmy

43945 readers

633 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
[email protected]: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

Do you use "mould" or "mold"? (lemmy.world)

submitted 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

50 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I've always thought that mold is the fungus, and to mould is to shape. When talking about it with my colleagues yesterday, I was surprised that this isn't common. Most people use one of the two spellings to refer to both.

Doing a quick search on duckduckgo also confirms that:

mould is the British spelling referring both meanings.
mold is the american spelling referring to both meanings.

In my quest to prove them wrong, I was surprised at how wrong I was... until I discovered a few people on the internet who said the same thing:

I'm not looking for what's correct or incorrect anymore, I just find it very fascinating that there are some people who use the words similarly to me, but the vast majority of others who use it in a different way.

So: what's the difference between mould and mold according to you?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I say mould because I'm English and that's just how it's spelled here (we also pronounce it with a U, pronouncing it without the U as mold would be...strange).

Not an overly exciting response I know, but there you go :P

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

How do you pronounce the U? Do you pronounce mould like should, would, or could? Is your pronunciation of mould then closer to mud than old with an M in front?

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

It's pronounced 'moeoueieueld'. You really need to emphasise the 'a' sound to get it right.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

I bit my tongue, thanks

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Now I'm realizing, I don't pronounce the L in those words... Maybe they pronounce it liked mulled?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

In honesty (my last comment was clearly not legit), you likely do pronounce the 'L'; most accents will include this in my experience.

Does the tip of your tongue touch the roof of your mouth just on or behind the ridge before your front teeth? If you release your tongue before pronouncing the 'D' is there a release of air? If you do position your tongue here and there is no release of air before pronouncing the 'D' (which does release air), then you are pronouncing the 'L'.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago

I could see some accents not pronouncing the L. It may colour the vowel, but not be a distinct sound on its own.