Cool Chris, I never thought of checking it.
Reminds me of a lecturer I had years ago in an advanced soldering course (electronics). He was American and pronounced solder as sod-er, used to get us students laughing 'till one day he asked what the problem was. We politely explained that we Aussies pronounce it sol-der.
That night I checked a couple of non-U.S. dictionaries and, well, both are acceptable pronunciations! I was shocked.
I apologised to the lecturer the next day, he was as surprised as I that the two were acceptable.
I figured it must have been a french word so the 'l' is silent.
Just checked the Online Etymology Dictionary:
solder http://www.etymonline.com/graphics/dictionary.gifc.1350, sawd, from O.Fr. soldure, from solder "to join with solder," from L. solidare "to make solid," from solidus "solid" (see
solid). Modern form is from c.1420. The -l- is still pronounced in Great Britain. The noun is first attested 1374.
From Wikipedia:
The word solder comes from the Middle English word soudur, via Old French solduree and soulder, from the Latin solidare, meaning '‘to make solid’'. In North America "solder" is pronounced with a silent L.