_caramel_

[Laurence Horn]

On Dec 19, 2011, at 11:04 PM, V wrote:

> Here is an observation
>
> 1. arC, ar#: COT vowel: carmel
> 2. arV: MARRY/MERRY vowel: caramel
>
> The vowel quality changes depending on the pattern.
>
> Pedro
>
Agreed. In the trisyllabic version, the first syllable is open:  ca-ra-mel (cf. "carrot" with stressed /ae/ vowel (or /&/, depending on your transcription system)
In the bisyllabic version, it's closed:  car-mel (cf. "car" /a/)

This isn't absolute; sometimes my friends (or even strangers, like my haircutter this morning) call me "Lar" and don't rhyme it with "car".  But it's pretty general.

LH
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, Dec 19, 2011 at 4:41 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
>> Subject:      Re: _caramel_
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Could there one have been both a
>>
>> [kAr at mEl]
>>
>> and a
>>
>> [kar at m@l]
>>
>> that eventually became
>>
>> [karm at l]
>>
>> ?
>>
>> I can't remember when I switched to the trisyllabic pronunciation, but
>> it probably wasn't until after I got out of the Army at the age of 25
>> and moved from Saint Louis to Los Angeles for good. My wife thinks
>> that it was a grad student at at around the same age that she made the
>> switch. IAC, we both somehow got the impression that bisyllabic was
>> wrong and trisyllabic right, after growing up bisyllabic in regions a
>> thousand miles apart.
>>
>> --
>> -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
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Dec 19, 2011 at 9:12 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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>>> Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>> Poster: Â  Â  Â  "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
>>> Subject: Â  Â  Â Re: _caramel_
>>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>> My unreliable memory tells me I grew up out of
>>> "carmel" (as in the candy, probably picked up on
>>> the street*) into "caramel", each pronounced as below.
>>> White, slightly earlier period, New York City.
>>>
>>> * No, not the candy, the pronunciation.
>>>
>>> Joel
>>>
>>> At 12/19/2011 01:21 AM, John Fitzpatrick wrote:
>>>> Carmel--first vowel has COT sound
>>>> Caramel--I say three syllables, the first "A" as in BAT.
>>>> Demographics: Â White; grew up in the '50s & '60s in Wash., D.C. and
>> adjacent
>>>> Montgomery Co., Md.; parochial schools
>>>>
>>>> Seán Fitzpatrick
>>>> “The heart that you break--
>>>> that’s the one that you rely on.â€
>>>>
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>>>
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>>
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>>
>
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