Ditto!
Caramel, and the emphasis is on the first syllable - and the end syllable is not ‘mel’ as in ‘melt’, it’s as in camel (more like ‘mul’).
CARR-uh-mell. Stress on the first syllable, short A to rhyme with the first syllable of barrel. Only way I’ve ever heard it pronounced (UK).
The dictionary gives that pronunciation as the secondary one, though - the first one has as schwa in the final syllable as well: CARR-uh-muhl. I pronounce it like that in “caramelise”, but “caramel” has a short “e” sound in the final syllable for me.
Edit: Mangetout’s pronunciation above is the dictionary’s first one.
I always pronounce caramel the way it’s spelled, with the A.
It seems like many people don’t pay much attention to the vowels in words…sort of like how so many people say the word “nuclear” as “Nuke-u-lar”, seemingly not noticing that there isn’t an extra U in there.
Gargamel Caramel
According to Nestle, it’s pronounced car-mel.
But according to Nestle, it’s care-a-mel.
I’m not sure who to believe.
Car-mull
If there is someone I think may be snooty listening I may say “care-a-mul” to avoid correction.
As mentioned above, care-a-mel is the noun and car-mel is the adjective. Weird. I’d never really thought of it that way before, but that is how I use it.
Care-uh-mell.
Carmel is a city in California.
I’m actually kind of disappointed in how those dialect maps look these days.
(they are maps of the USA showing who says “Coke” and who says “Soda”, or “Ant” vs. “Aunt”)
I looked at a few dozen of the maps and they all look pretty much the same, with very little sharp clustering of only red or only blue. I remember them being much better before.
I’m sure that the true regionalisms can be teased out by a statistician, but the “stand back and squint” approach doesn’t really show much difference in the distribution.
Caramel. Carmel is a hoity-toity even-toed ungulate with hump(s) on its back.
My husband used to say intestines with the long last syllable - INT-est-INES. It took me a while to figure out what the hell he was talking about.
Anyway, back to the OP: Car-mel. Car-a-mel sounds weird to me.
Wasn’t sure which one to tick.
I pronounce it KARRA-mel
So the first bit rhymes with the first part of paraffin