Pronunciation of "caramel"

Question

BrE: karra-mell like a variation on "caraway"
AmE: kar-mell
I'm always struck by the AmE pronunciation of "caramel" and wonder how it came about. After all, it's not as though "caraway" is pronounced "carway" in AmE.

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M.C. typed thus:
[nq:1]BrE: karra-mell like a variation on "caraway" AmE: kar-mell I'm always struck by the AmE pronunciation of "caramel" and wonder how it came about. After all, it's not as though "caraway" is pronounced "carway" in AmE.[/nq]
This happens to many words in certain US accents - witness the movement of terrorist to "tare-ist".

David
==

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]BrE: karra-mell like a variation on "caraway" AmE: kar-mell[/nq]
My personal "version" is "car-uh-mull". It's similar to the latter, but with three syllables.

Michael DeBusk, Co-Conspirator to Make the World a Better Place Did he update http://home.earthlink.net/~debu4335/ yet?

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[nq:1]BrE: karra-mell like a variation on "caraway" AmE: kar-mell I'm always struck by the AmE pronunciation of "caramel" and wonder how it came about. After all, it's not as though "caraway" is pronounced "carway" in AmE.[/nq]
Because of Mount Carmel. I assume that's where the candy was first made. It might even be in the Bible.
\P. Schultz

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[nq:1]BrE: karra-mell like a variation on "caraway" AmE: kar-mell I'm always struck by the AmE pronunciation of "caramel" and wonder how it came about. After all, it's not as though "caraway" is pronounced "carway" in AmE.[/nq]
I've heard both for a long time.
Interestingly, a candy company has just finished a poll on the preferred pronunciation. At a nestle website. I went there because my candy wrapper said I might have won a million dollars, but the site had no current contests. I wonder how old that candy was.

Anyhow the total was 52% car-a-mel; 48% car-mel. California and every east coast state from Louisiana to Maine voted for car-a-mel. Every other state except for Vermont voted for car-mel.
Not that there are different "a" sounds in the two words. Car-a-mel usually sounds like caraway, and carmel sounds like marble.

After you click on this screen and wait until it loadsClick on the state you are interested in to get the percentage vote in that state:

http://www.nestlecrunch.com/caramel/default.asp?snf=1&mp=

In my small amount of clicking, I could see the percentage for car-mel get greater, the farther the state was from the coast. I wish I know more about their sample.
They say, or give the impression they had said earlier (I haven't been following this), that they would pronounce the word in future commercials according to the vote cast.
But since I'm used to both pronunciations, I probably won't notice.

s/ meirman If you are emailing me please
say if you are posting the same response.
Born west of Pittsburgh Pa. 10 years
Indianapolis, 7 years
Chicago, 6 years
Brooklyn NY 12 years
Baltimore 20 years

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[nq:2]BrE: karra-mell like a variation on "caraway" AmE: kar-mell ... it's not as though "caraway" is pronounced "carway" in AmE.[/nq]
[nq:1]Because of Mount Carmel. I assume that's where the candy was first made. It might even be in the Bible.[/nq]
How could I possibly overlook that?

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[nq:2]I'm always struck by the AmE pronunciation of "caramel" and ... it's not as though "caraway" is pronounced "carway" in AmE.[/nq]
[nq:1]I've heard both for a long time. Interestingly, a candy company has just finished a poll on the preferred pronunciation. ... word in future commercials according to the vote cast. But since I'm used to both pronunciations, I probably won't notice.[/nq]
That's pretty interesting! Thanks.

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[nq:1]Every other state except for Vermont voted for car-mel.[/nq]
Wait, don't tell me. Vermont wanted "camel."

Michael DeBusk, Co-Conspirator to Make the World a Better Place Did he update http://home.earthlink.net/~debu4335/ yet?

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]Every other state except for Vermont voted for car-mel.[/nq]
[nq:1]Wait, don't tell me. Vermont wanted "camel."

[/nq]
Because caramel is a confection designed by a committee?

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[nq:2]Every other state except for Vermont voted for car-mel.[/nq]
[nq:1]Wait, don't tell me. Vermont wanted "camel."

[/nq]
No, they voted for car-a-mel too. I should have listed them in the previous sentence, but was too lazy to go back and fix it.

I think this might be an interesting phenomenon. Usually they talk about regional pronunciations, the North, the Northeast, the South, the West, the Midwest. I've never heard of a variation used along the coast, from north to south to the gulf, but not inland.

I wonder how big the sample was, and fwiw if they were all children.
s/ meirman If you are emailing me please
say if you are posting the same response.
Born west of Pittsburgh Pa. 10 years
Indianapolis, 7 years
Chicago, 6 years
Brooklyn NY 12 years
Baltimore 20 years

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[nq:2]Wait, don't tell me. Vermont wanted "camel."

[/nq]
[nq:1]Because caramel is a confection designed by a committee?[/nq]
I suppose you'd have to have heard a regional dialect from that area. I imagine someone from Vermont pronouncing it "camel", with the "a" being drawn out to double length.

Michael DeBusk, Co-Conspirator to Make the World a Better Place Did he update http://home.earthlink.net/~debu4335/ yet?

Pronunciation of "caramel"

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