About Us

How it started: Shake the L out of them

This project started when its creator, Tyler Ash, moved from Woodland, CA to Ripon, CA. It was in Ripon where he first heard the pronunciation of the word "almond" without the L. This pronunciation was entirely new to him. Continual arguments ensued with friends until finally one said that both pronunciations were in the dictionary, so Tyler looked up the definition of almond and sure enough both pronunciations were listed. 

This triggered a string of research spanning over a decade to find the answer to the pronunciation's origin, but to no avail. Only theories have been postulated, including his own, and the growing consensus is that it goes a little deeper than "it's an almond when it's in the tree and an amond when it's on the ground because the L gets shaken out of it!" 

Since Tyler's departure from UC ANR, the project is being managed by Cameron Zuber from the UC Cooperative Extension office in Merced county with support from other UC ANR staff. We hope to continue Tyler's dedication to this project and curiosity about this mystery.

If you have a family history in growing almonds in California or the Western United States and you believe you know the origin of when or how this pronunciation came about, please take the survey.

We can be reached by emailing us at sayalmond@ucanr.edu. 

Project Members

Cameron Zuber is a farm advisor for UC Cooperative Extension. He covers all deciduous orchard crops for Merced county, not including pistachios and figs, and walnuts for Madera county. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of California (UC), Davis and a master’s degree from UC Merced. He started working for UC Cooperative Extension as a staff researcher in 2016 and transitioned to a farm advisor in 2022. He heard the different pronunciations of almond after working with growers and researchers in Merced. Initially perplexed about the different pronunciations, his curiosity lead to meeting Tyler and eventually to his involvement with the project.

Previous Members

Tyler Ash was the Marketing Specialist and Social Media Coordinator for UC ANR. He graduated from CSU, Chico with a bachelor's degree in journalism, all while working at the 800-acre Chico State Farm as a student laborer and then a full-time farm laborer upon graduation. He worked in row crops and orchards, including the 70 acres of almonds planted on site. Before attending CSU, Chico, Tyler graduated from Ripon High School. It was in the small farming community of Ripon, CA where he first heard the pronunciation of the word "almond" without the L.