_apricot, caramel_

[Dan Goncharoff]

Although I grew up in Brrooklyn, my speech reflects TV announcers more than
anything.

I am definitely (b) and three syllables for caramel and Dorothy.

DanG


On Sun, Dec 18, 2011 at 4:09 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      _apricot, caramel_
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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*.
>
> Youneverknow.
>
> *In my youth, _writ_ was the Catholic word for _scripture_, e.g. "Holy
> Writ" = "Holy Scripture."
>
> --
> -Wilson
> -----
> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
> to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> -Mark Twain
>
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