Apricot (short i sound)

Car mel (almost like two words.) if you meant the place. Caramel if you meant the sweet.

JC Penny’s (not pennies).

I am from upstate NY also (Champlain – you can’t get any more upstate than that) and now live in Virginia too (since 1984).

I say Caramel, (but I will probably pronounce it CAR-mul unless I’m in merry olde England) when I’m talking about the candy or liquified sugar, and Carmel (CAR-mel) when I’m talking about the mountain range in Israel, the town in Indiana or the bay in California.

When describing the department store started and owned by James Cash Penny, I say J.C. Penny’s because it is a possive form, but the JCPenny form is the name of the current corporation that bears Mr. Penny’s name today. If I were talking about James Cash Penny and James Cash Penny Jr in the plural form, I might say J.C. Pennies, or if the JC was an abbrieviation for an adjective describing a type of penny, and I was talking about more than one of the them, I’d use the plural form.

I say apricot.

Caramel

and JCPenny.

I am orignially from Upstate, Ny. Have lived in Va for 2.5 yrs now