Fair enough. Yes, two syllables, but there's a sound between the "val" and the "oo" parts.

If I see "loo" absent context I would normally pronounce it without that intervening sound. Whereas "lieu" has it.

For me that intervening sound is a hard 'y' though (as in 'yes') not long 'ee'.

Now I'm confused over whether Kivaloo is '~oo' as I assumed, or (roughly, weaker 'y') '~yoo' as I think we agree 'lieu' is?

It's pronounced "key-value". The "kee-va-lieu" thing was a joke. ;-)

How do you pronounce “solder”?

saw-dur.

That is what I am accustomed to. However, Mr. Carlson of Mr. Carlson's lab pronounces it "soll-der". https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCU9SoQxJewrWb_3GxeteQPA

I was wondering if that is a common Canadian pronounciation.

Wow, it's never occurred to me anyone would pronounce that much differently (Am/Can pronunciation of 'r' in 'er's aside)! UK is 'soll-duh', or I suppose 'sohl-duh', but certainly sounding the 'l'.

Wiktionary suggests Canada generally follows the pronunciation your familiar with.

Yes, generally that is true. There are a few words, at least out west, that stand out: "About" "Schedule" "America".

The last one is in jest. The word is pronounced the same--in the US, often the US is called America, seemingly excluding Canada, Central America, South America.

And a fact that I didn't know until recently was that the Philippines prior to WW II was part of the United States. See "How to hide an empire" by Daniel Immerwahr: https://www.amazon.com/How-Hide-Empire-History-Greater/dp/03...