Forum: english.stackexchange.com
Tags: <pronunciation>
Title: How do you properly pronounce 'mall'?
Question: In America, it's pretty much universally pronounced "moll" but in the UK, I have heard a few different ways of pronouncing it:   Mall (rhymes with pal)  Maul (rhymes with ball and hence the American pronunciations match up)  Moll   It may depend on accents but which is the correct way?

Answers:
sents: text: There are a couple confusions at work here.
text: First, there are different " lexical sets " the word could fall into: TRAP, LOT, BATH, CLOTH, PALM, THOUGHT, NORTH, FORCE.
text: For the most part, most speakers and dictionaries of English agree that mall is either pronounced with the vowel for THOUGHT or with the vowel for TRAP, the TRAP pronunciation usually only in the context of pall-mall .
text: No dialect pronounces all those lexical sets with distinct vowels, but each dialect may merge them in different ways.
text: American English generally merges TRAP-BATH, LOT-PALM, CLOTH-THOUGHT, and NORTH-FORCE.
text: This means that Americans use the same vowel for TRAP as for BATH, the same vowel for LOT as for PALM, and the same vowel for CLOTH as for THOUGHT.
text: British English generally merges LOT-CLOTH, BATH-PALM, THOUGHT-NORTH-FORCE, and keeping TRAP in a distinct group.
text: Furthermore, the cot-caught merger in some varieties of American English merge the LOT-PALM group with the CLOTH-THOUGHT group, making a single lexical set LOT-PALM-CLOTH-THOUGHT, all pronounced with the same vowel (/ɑ/)—for some speakers of American English (me included).
text: So, a British English-speaking person would think they might hear me say mall thinking it sounds like moll (that is, to be in the LOT set), and that I am pronouncing it "wrong", but not realize that I pronounce all LOT words with the same vowel as THOUGHT words—that is, for me the words LOT and THOUGHT rhyme.
text: In conclusion, the vowel of mall should be the same as the vowel for thought , however you pronounce it in your dialect.
answer_details: author: english.stackexchange.com/users/39/nohat
score: 15
sents: text: If you want the original prononciation, it would be the one that rhymes with "pal", from the shopping street
text: The Mall in London, which in turn got it's name from the game pall-mall once played there.
text: 1737, "shaded walk serving as a promenade," from The Mall, broad, tree-lined promenade in St. James's Park, London (1674), formerly an open alley that was used to play pall-mall, a croquet-like game involving hitting a ball with a mallet through a ring, from
text: Fr. pallemaille, from It.
text: pallamaglio, from palla "ball" (see balloon) + maglio "mallet.".
text: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/mall
text: The modern use of the word for a shopping centre has of course lost most of it's history, thus the Americans simply pronounce it as other similar words like fall, hall, ball and call.
answer_details: author: english.stackexchange.com/users/3365/Guffa
score: 12
sents: text: There is not a correct pronunciation.
text: As you said, American English and British English speakers give to the word a different pronunciation (/mɔl/
text: in American English; /mal/
text: /mɔːl/ /mɒl/
text: in British English); even inside the same English dialect, different regions can possibly have different pronunciations.
answer_details: author: english.stackexchange.com/users/252/kiamlaluno
score: 5
sents: text: This is also a word that's subject to strong regional variations in the U.S.
text: In Brooklyn English, which is where I, a non-native speaker learned it, it's more like 'mawwl'.
text: In my native tongue, the word for "mall" is "קניון" (transliteration "canyon" and also means "canyon") which leads to puns like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Canyon_%28mall%29
answer_details: author: english.stackexchange.com/users/3370/ראובן
score: 2
sents: text: nohat gave a great answer.
text: There is just one more point, to make about the word mall.
text: The pronunciation of it is usually different, in American and British English.
text: In the UK, it's normally pronounced as "morl" (rhymes with the words or and more).
text: Except, when pronouncing Pall Mall and The Mall.
text: Those are normally pronounced "mal", like the letter a in the words trap and hat.
text: Therefore, the pronunciation depends on the context.
text: It depends if you are pronouncing just the word mall or, you are pronouncing Pall Mall or The Mall.
text: On a related note, the word mall, is not normally used in the UK.
text: In the US, it means a shopping centre.
text: In the UK, it is normal just to say, shopping centre.
answer_details: author: english.stackexchange.com/users/19290/Tristan
score: 1
sents: text: The American cigarette brand, "Pall Mall," is pronounced "pawl mawl," and that's the name of that tune.
answer_details: author: english.stackexchange.com/users/5262/The Raven
score: 0
sents: text: In American English, it's /ˈmɑ:
text: l/ http://www.learnersdictionary.com/search/mall
answer_details: author: english.stackexchange.com/users/None/
score: 0

Summary of the answers:
There is no agreed "correct" pronunciation for the word "mall". However, most speakers and dictionaries of English agree that "mall" is either pronounced with the vowel for "thought" or the vowel for "trap". The differences are largely regional, varying between the US and the UK.
The pronunciation of "mall" in the sense of how it is actually pronounced can vary between US and UK speakers as the pronounce words based on lexical groupings that follow a pattern. The word should be pronounced as similar to "thought" but this pronunciation varies across the two groups. There are many local variants. In American English, it's /ˈmɑ:. A point to note that UK English speakers use the word "shopping centre" and rarely "mall" anyway.
There is no agreed "correct" pronunciation for the word "mall". However, most speakers and dictionaries of English agree that "mall" is either pronounced with the vowel for "thought" or the vowel for "trap". The differences are largely regional, varying between the US and the UK.
English has several possible pronunciations that could be used, and since the word is came to the US mostly without context, the pronunciation there is different. While the name originally comes from Pall Mall in London, most British English speakers pronounce a shopping mall differently from The Mall or Pall Mall.
The pronunciation of Mall is usually different, in American and British English. It is also a word that's subject to strong regional variations in the U.S. There is not a correct pronunciation.
It is generally accepted that there is no one correct pronunciation. Firstly, pronunciation will vary depending on the regional dialet. Secondly, it will also depend on the context, with pronunciation varying depending on what you are referring to.