Ditto.
kar’mel corn and salted care’-uh-mels
kar-mel is a city. Like Carmel CA
care-a-mel is the candy.
As long as we’re talking pronunciation: Carmel, California (full name Carmel-by-the-Sea) is pronounced (locally, at least) car-MELL. But Carmel, Indiana is pronounced (locally) CAR-mul.
Fascinating stuff, I know.
The “they sound exactly the same to me” is part if the problem that is solved by using the International Phonetic Alphabet, which is exactly what the post you’re responding to did. Learn IPA.
ka-ruh-mel. But car-mel is the little squares wrapped in celophane that you melt to put on apples.
It’s just you’re typical American laziness. It’s obvious (at least to me) that caramel was originally a three syllable word. It’s been bastardized to a two syllable word by a wide swath of people.
A good local example is the town of Lovilia. EVERYONE here pronounces it “Lovilla” even though it’s pretty obvious that is not the original pronunciation.
The shining all-time example is of course Worcestershire, pronounced “Wooster-sheer”. The town of Worcester in my home state is similarly stunted to “Wooster”. Even as a local, it always annoyed me.
I voted something else and this is it.
This is the correct answer.
I do both. It depends on context. I’m more inclined to use carmel as an adjective and caramel as a noun. It’s a carmel sundae, but it’s topped with caramel.
And, by caramel, I do mean CARE-ih-m’l, and not CARE-uh-MELL as some people do. That never fits.
Except it doesn’t. For one, the sound indicated as /æ/ still sounds different when placed before an /r/ sound, even without the Mary, merry, marry merger. For another, the poster did not indicate how they pronounce care.
And there still are other methods of relating the same information in a way that does not need a whole new alphabet. The exact same information would have been expressed if the poster has said it’s like the a in cat (even if that, still, is not exactly correct).
I never understand this idea that people need to go out and learn something far more complicated than necessary to understand something simple. Just express it simply and save people the frustration.
karramool as in pull
It might be true in your accent that it changes before an R, but this is not some kind of universal truth.
This is part of the problem that I identified, not something separate.
Thread after thread after thread after thread on these message boards prove that these “other methods” are not only inferior to I.P.A., but that they lead to endless rounds of misunderstanding and repeated conversations.
Pronunciation is a different language. If you’re going to discuss it, you need to learn a different alphabet. Furthermore, it takes no more than a minimal level of time and effort to learn it.
Using I.P.A. is exactly what saves people the frustration of endless, circular conversations.
True that some words/places in the US are messed up. The Midwest can be bad, for places like Cairo (kay-ro), Milan (my-lan), etc. But Worcester is hardly America’s fault. The English have interesting pronunciations for a lot of things.
-St. John Featheringstonehaugh
I pronounced it “carm’l” until I went out into the world and noticed a lot of people pronouncing it as spelled. Now I sort of flip-flop between the two pronunciations. It makes me slightly uncomfortable to have to pronounce the word in front of people I don’t know.
When my wife was in med school she did some rotations in a Mount Carmel Hospital. One dimwit in her class asked, “Why would they name a hospital after caramel?”
I always thought the cafeteria there should have served a big ice cream sundae called Mount Caramel.
Or you could be like the local “famous” restaurant* sign along the interstate highway here: “World Famous Carmel Rolls”. That sign has since been changed.
*Tobey’s in Hinckley Minnesota, if you’re curious
Let me guess, they changed it to “World Famous Carmel Roll’s”?
It’s car a mel.
And it pains me greatly every time I pass by this shop in Easton, PA
http://www.roadfood.com/Restaurant/Overview/3038/carmelcorn-shop
http://betsyrubiner.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/easton.jpg
(sigh)
UT~