How to pronounce mother

Benjamin in Seattle, Washington, was surprised when someone pointed out his nonstandard pronunciation of the word both as bolth. About 10 percent of respondents to our online survey said they pronounce the word both with an L sound in it.

If someone vocalizes all their coda /l/’s so that words like bowl, Hal, and mail are pronounced bow, how, and maiw, they might try to change their pronunciation to sound more standard, so they start putting all those /l/’s back in. Bow > bowl, how > Hal, maiw > mail, both > bolth.