Thank you! "Calm incense" makes very little sense when said in an accent where calm isn't pronounced like com.

How is calm pronounced in those accents?

In Australian English, calm rhymes with farm and uses a long vowel, while com uses a short vowel and would rhyme with prom. (I know this doesn't help much because some American accents also rhyme prom with farm).

Consider the way "Commonwealth Bank" is pronounced in this news story: https://youtube.com/watch?v=MhkuHGRAAbg. An Australian English speaker would consider (most) Americans to be saying something like "Carmenwealth" rather "Commonwealth". See also the pronunciation of dog vs father in https://www.goalsenglish.com/lessons/2020/5/4/australian-eng....

It really ruins some poetry.

It's not 'calm' that differs, it's 'common'. Calm like palm, in all major accents.

Traditionally, calm and com- have different vowels in English, but most North American accents merge com- into calm. All other major English accents retain the distinction.

If you're American, try saying 'com' while rounding your lips. Or just listen to a recording of 'common' in an online dictionary from Britain or Australia. (Or lot, pot, spot, etc.)

TLDR (simplified):

US/Ca: (lot = palm) ≠ start

UK/Au: lot ≠ (palm = start)

Cahm

Like the "cam" in "camera"?

I've been thinking about this for a minute, and I think if an American were to say "why", and take only the most open vowel sound from that word and put it between "k" and "m", you get a pretty decent Australian pronunciation. I am an Australian so I could be entirely wrong about how one pronounces "why".

No, with a long vowel sound. Caaahm. The L is blended into the M so much that it's almost silent.

Unless you're specifically enunciating it. The common usage lacks the L sound, but it is acceptable to intentionally add it back in for disambiguation

call-mm

This is the correct parsing of it. (I can't take credit for coming up with the title, but I worked on the project.)

I only got the "How to recognize" part. Also I think "using" should sound more like "you zinc" than "you sing".

Thanks. Now I know that I'm not that stupid and this actually makes no sense

It actually does make sense. Not saying you're stupid, but in standard English, if you say it quickly, the two sentences are nearly identical.

They're pretty different in British English, I struggled to figure it out until I started thinking about how it would sound with an American accent.

But in "you sing", "s" is pronounced as "s", not as "z" from "using", right?

I pronounce using with an S unless I'm saying it very slowly

Thank you very much!