Pronunciations that drive me crazy.

…many words aren’t pronounced exactly like they are spelled, as we learned in the “worcestershire” episode a few months ago. There are even other three-syllable words in which the middle syllable is often dropped such as “interesting,” which is often pronounced “intresting,” and “laboratory,” which is often pronounced “labratory.”

I’ll also concede that I feel a little bit defensive about the “carmel” pronunciation, given that it’s all I heard growing up, and seems to be the common pronunciation in my region and—depending on which maps you look at—in the majority of the United States, and then it feels like people are just decreeing for no reason that one pronunciation is “better” than the others.

The word caramel can acceptably be pronounced in several accepted ways, including KARR-uh-mel, KARR-uh-muhl, and, in North American English, KAR-muhl.