_apricot, caramel_

[Benjamin Barrett]

I use both, but tend toward b.

Another great pronunciation in the 1939 "The Wizard of Oz" is the use of three syllables for "Dorothy."

Benjamin Barrett
Seattle, WA

On Dec 18, 2011, at 1:09 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:

>
> My wife and I both pronounce this word as
>
> (a) ['AprI,kat]
>
> However, in my family, this word is pronounced
>
> (b) ['EIprI,kat]
>
> Somehow, over the years, I got the impression that the "proper'
> pronunciation is (a). So, I've been using that one for dekkids. Now,
> as I watch The Wizard of Oz on the tube, I hear the cast using
> pronunciation (b). Having been relicensed, I shall now return to the
> (b) of my youth.
>
> According to my wife, the only pronunciation of which she was hitherto
> aware is (a).
>
> In like manner, my wife and I both use the trisyllabic pronunciation
> of _caramel_. However, we *both* grew up using only a single
> pronunciation the bisyllabic one, acquiring the "proper" pronunciation
> only later in life.
>
> Neither of us can recall what the motivation for this shift was. We
> agree that the shift is mysterious, since, as is the case with the
> initial vowel of _economic_, variation is standard. In fact, there was
> once a commercial featuring Shaq and some other black guy. Shaq used
> the trisyllabic pronunciation, the other guy used the bisyllabic one,
> and there was nothing to indicate that there was any kind of
> preference for either pronunciation. And there's currently a
> commercial on (national?) TV in which the white reader uses the
> bisyllabic pronunciation without hesitation.
>
> IAC, perhaps this parallel shift, in our case, is a consequence of our
> becoming familiar with the spelling and unconsciously deciding that
> trisyllabic, therefore, *must* be "proper," lacking the 'nads to go
> against writ*.

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