Carmelite onions

[wwidsith]

For some reason Hannah and I have this weird thing where we use American pronunciations when we're talking about food. I think it's partly because she watches so much Rachel Ray on cable and partly because culinary terms seem to include a particularly high proprtion of words which are said very differently on different sides of the Atlantic. Hence

Comments

[ruakh]

I don't know if I consider it a mistake. It certainly doesn't stand out at me. When I first read your Fables quotation, I didn't notice it.

But it's interesting - to me "CAR-məl" and "CARE-ə-mell" are both fine pronunciations of caramel, but only "CAR-mə-lies" works for caramelize. I take it you pronounce it "CARE-ə-mell-eyes"? That sounds bizarre to me.

[wwidsith]

Even your CARE- transcription there only really works with American [æ] and not with UK [a], but yes! ("care" for me is /kɛ(ə)/, whereas "caramelise" is /'kaɹəməlaɪz/...)

[muckefuck]

Everything what you said. I think I grew up saying /'karməl/ and only learned the /'kerəmel/ pronounciation later in life. But caramelise is always a back vowel and trisyllabic.

[wwidsith]

But would you spell it "carmelize"?

[herself_nyc]

I would always spell and pronounce it with a z, but I know that other words of similar formation are sometimes spelled with an s so I suppose I'd see it as a variant and leave my pitchfork in its corner.

[wwidsith]

Haha, no it's nothing to do with the s/z thing -- it's missing out the second A (look at the quotes again!)

[herself_nyc]

Ack. My short attention span strikes again!

[norabird]

I would see it as neither mistake nor variant but as correct, of course! i can work my head and tongue around your pronunciation but only effortfully.

[wwidsith]

It's not the pronunciation I'm concerned about, it's the spelling "carmelize" with only one A. So you wouldn't change that if you came across it in a manuscript then?

[norabird]

No, I wouldn't change it, unless perhaps I were copy-editing and took it upon myself to check the spelling. But as a casual reader carmelize is perfectly fine to my eye.

[wwidsith]

Excellent, thank you! It doesn't seem to appear in any dictionaries I have, even US ones.

[weofodthignen]

lol