From the Main List: Pronunciation of Pensieve and Seamus Threads

Sat Jul 17 04:19:23 UTC 2004

105866

From:  "meglet2" <mercia at ireland.com> 
Date:  Mon Jul 12, 2004  11:03 pm 
Subject:  Pronuciation of 'Pensieve'

I have been rereading GoF and find I am now wondering how to
pronounce pensieve. Up to now I have always mentally read it in a
French way (as though there were a grave accent over the first e)
and vaguely connected it in my mind with the French verb 'penser' -
to think. But then I realise that read in an English fashion it
would be a homonym of pensive, ie thoughtful, still of course a word
derived from the French verb penser. The suggestion of a sieve in
the word, ie something in which you could 'sift' your thoughts was
an additional pleasing complication. Now I am not sure in my mind
which pronunciation to prefer and find I swing back and forth. I'm
sure all those layers are part of JKR's intention with the word, but
just wondered if anyone else shared this confusion or if there was
any consensus out there on the correct pronunciation. A small niggle
I know but I would be interested to know if anyone else shared it.

Mercia

105867 

From: ladyramkin2000 <ladyramkin2000 at yahoo.co.uk> 
Date: Mon Jul 12, 2004 11:11pm
Subject: Re: Pronunciation of "pensieve"

I have never been too sure how to pronounce this, but finally decided 
on "pensive" as it combines the idea of thoughts with sieve, i.e. it 
sifts the thoughts that are put into it. Obviously it is from the 
French "penser" but I don't think it is pronounced in the French 
fashion. Like so many English words derived from French, it is 
probably pronounced exactly as spelled.

Sylvia

105893

From:  "Katrina" <patnkatng at cox.net> 
Date:  Tue Jul 13, 2004  2:41 am 
Subject:  Re: Pronunciation of "pensieve"

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "ladyramkin2000"
<ladyramkin2000 at y...> wrote:
> I have never been too sure how to pronounce this, but finally decided
> on "pensive" as it combines the idea of thoughts with sieve, i.e.it
> sifts the thoughts that are put into it. Obviously it is from the
> French "penser" but I don't think it is pronounced in the French
> fashion. Like so many English words derived from French, it is
> probably pronounced exactly as spelled.
>
> Sylvia

Katrina:
That's how Stephen Fry pronounces it. Until I heard him say it, I
was pronouncing it pen-SEEV. But pensive sounds better and makes
more sense. Like Diagon Alley, etc. 

105952

From:  "Geoff Bannister" <gbannister10 at aol.com> 
Date:  Tue Jul 13, 2004  7:38 am 
Subject:  Re: Pronunciation of "pensieve"

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Katrina" <patnkatng at c...>
wrote:
> --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "ladyramkin2000"
> <ladyramkin2000 at y...> wrote:
> > I have never been too sure how to pronounce this, but finally decided
> > on "pensive" as it combines the idea of thoughts with sieve, i.e. it
> > sifts the thoughts that are put into it. Obviously it is from the
> > French "penser" but I don't think it is pronounced in the French
> > fashion. Like so many English words derived from French, it is
> > probably pronounced exactly as spelled.
> >
> > Sylvia
>
> Katrina:
> That's how Stephen Fry pronounces it. Until I heard him say it, I
> was pronouncing it pen-SEEV. But pensive sounds better and makes
> more sense. Like Diagon Alley, etc.

Geoff:
I've always pronounced it like pensive because I assumed that it is
one of JKR's wordplays - pensive=thoughtful - other examples being
Umbridge=umbrage (to take umbrage - to take offence at something
which is said or done) Diagon Alley=diagonally and Knockturn
Alley=nocturnally. 

106072

From:  "Geoff Bannister" <gbannister10 at aol.com> 
Date:  Tue Jul 13, 2004  10:07 pm 
Subject:  Re: Pronunciation of "pensieve"/Riddle

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "eldermomx3" <eldermomx3 at y...>
wrote:
> --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "ladyramkin2000"
> <ladyramkin2000 at y...> wrote:
> > I have never been too sure how to pronounce this, but finally decided
> > on "pensive" as it combines the idea of thoughts with sieve, i.e. it
> > sifts the thoughts that are put into it. Obviously it is from the
> > French "penser" but I don't think it is pronounced in the French
> > fashion. Like so many English words derived from French, it is
> > probably pronounced exactly as spelled.
>
> MJ Here:
>
> Hi - I'm also a long-time lurker but a new poster here so hopefully
> I'm doing this right.
>
> The Scholastic.com's pronunciation guide says: PEN-siv

Geoff:
As I remarked in message 105952, I assumed it was one of JKR's
wordplays on pensive which is a normal English word, pronounced in a
perfectly normal English way.

Going off at a tangent, I was contemplating this word today when the
thought crossed my mind that, in English, a riddle is a type of
coarse sieve...... Hmmm. Is JKR trying to tell us something?

106034 

From: eldermomx3 <eldermomx3 at yahoo.com> 
Date: Tue Jul 13, 2004 4:58pm
Subject: Re: Pronunciation of "pensieve"

    --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "ladyramkin2000" 
<ladyramkin2000 at y...> wrote:
> I have never been too sure how to pronounce this, but finally decided 
> on "pensive" as it combines the idea of thoughts with sieve, i.e. it 
> sifts the thoughts that are put into it. Obviously it is from the 
> French "penser" but I don't think it is pronounced in the French 
> fashion. Like so many English words derived from French, it is 
> probably pronounced exactly as spelled.

MJ Here:

Hi - I'm also a long-time lurker but a new poster here so hopefully 
I'm doing this right.

The Scholastic.com's pronunciation guide says: PEN-siv

The link for that is http://www.scholastic.com/harrypotter/reference/ 
It's also audible so you can hear it pronounced.

It's a great link for all those tricky words.

-MJ

106521 

From: Phil Boswell <phil_hp7 at yahoo.co.uk> 
Date: Fri Jul 16, 2004 1:32pm
Subject: Re: Pronunciation of "pensieve"

    "eldermomx3" <eldermomx3 at y...> wrote:
> The Scholastic.com's pronunciation guide says: PEN-siv
> The link for that is ttp://www.scholastic.com/harrypotter/reference/ 
> It's also audible so you can hear it pronounced.
> It's a great link for all those tricky words.

That's a great link, with some strange inconsistencies and one real
annoyance.

For example, if you look at the entry for "Mimbulus Mimbletonia", the
stressed syllables in the text are totally different from the spoken
version.

I was however torn between amusement and sadness that anyone might
need a guide to pronounce "Imperturbable".

Slightly unfortunately, perhaps, the given pronunciation of "Ludo" is
"LEW-do" and actually sounds more like "LEWD-o" which I don't think
was quite the idea :-)

I did like "Knuts" which is stated as "K'nuts" but sounds like
"K'noots": if I recall correctly this comes froma Danish name which
English school-children might recognise as "Canute", the king who sat
in the sea :-)

The REAL annoyance is that instead of giving us a pronunciation for
"Voldemort", it wibbles on about "Ssshhh, he-who-must-not-be-named". I
was hoping that it would show the French pronunciation which is what
JKR says she always uses. In fact I downloaded the interview at "The
Connection" which someone pointed out the other day and you can hear
this quite clearly.

HTH HAND
--  

Phil

106560

From:  "justcarol67" <justcarol67 at yahoo.com> 
Date:  Fri Jul 16, 2004  8:09 pm 
Subject:  Re: Pronunciation of "pensieve" and other HP terms

"eldermomx3" wrote:
The Scholastic.com's pronunciation guide says: PEN-siv
The link for that is http://www.scholastic.com/harrypotter/reference/
It's also audible so you can hear it pronounced. It's a great link for
all those tricky words.

Phil responded:
That's a great link, with some strange inconsistencies and one real
annoyance. <examples snipped>

Carol adds:
Overall, though, I think it's more useful than not, and fun as well,
especially for those of us who aren't British and don't have the audio
tapes. (Kids will like it, too, especially those who are struggling a
bit with the later books.)

I was mispronuncing "knuts" as "nuts" (I like your connection with
Canute, BTW) and Rabastan Lestrange as RAB uh stan Le STRANJ (long A)
when it should be Ra BASS ton La STRAWGE. (Should have taken French as
my foreign language in high school and college instead of Latin, I guess!)

I was, however, mildly annoyed by the omission of "riddikulus," which
I prefer to pronounce as rid di KOO lus rather than "ridiculous,"
simply because that's too obvious and doesn't sound like a spell.

I was even more annoyed by a glaring error in the Discussion Guide:
Serpensortia is used to block unfriendly spells? That one bothered me
so much I actually e-mailed Scholastic about it--undoubtedly the wrong
people, but I hope they'll forward it. (I can just see the tech
support people, who expect questions like "How can I get Flash to work
with my browser, saying, "Huh? What kind of idiot sent us this?")

Carol

106567

From:  "fxs087" <fxs087 at yahoo.co.uk> 
Date:  Fri Jul 16, 2004  12:00 pm 
Subject:  Pronunciations

Just wondering, how do you pronounce Seamus Finnigan's name? Is it
pronounced "SHAME-US" or "SEEM-US"?

106577

From:  "kartik_subram" <kartik_subram at yahoo.com> 
Date:  Fri Jul 16, 2004  9:25 pm 
Subject:  Re: Pronunciation of "pensieve"

> The REAL annoyance is that instead of giving us a pronunciation for
> "Voldemort", it wibbles on about "Ssshhh, he-who-must-not-be-named". I
> was hoping that it would show the French pronunciation which is what
> JKR says she always uses. In fact I downloaded the interview at "The
> Connection" which someone pointed out the other day and you can hear
> this quite clearly.
>
> HTH HAND
> --
> Phil

If you click on "Voldemort" multiple times, it ends up giving you the
actual pronunciation.

106585

From:  "Annette Hamel" <annettehamel at hotmail.com> 
Date:  Fri Jul 16, 2004  9:01 pm 
Subject:  RE: [HPforGrownups] Pronunciations

<<Just wondering, how do you pronounce Seamus Finnigan's name? Is it
pronounced "SHAME-US" or "SEEM-US"?>>

Shame-us.

Annette
=^..^=

106596

From:  "Steve" <asian_lovr2 at yahoo.com> 
Date:  Sat Jul 17, 2004  12:23 am 
Subject:  OT: Re: Pronunciations

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Iggy McSnurd"
<CoyotesChild at c...> wrote:
>
>
>
> > <<.., how do you pronounce Seamus Finnigan's name?
> > Is it pronounced "SHAME-US" or "SEEM-US"?>>
> >
> > Shame-us.
> >
> > Annette
> > =^..^=

> Iggy here:
>
> Actually, according to an Irish friend of mine, the most accurate
> pronunciation is "Seam-us" closely followed by the variant "Same-us."
>
> Iggy McSnurd

Asian_lovr2:

Hi Iggy, sorry but you actually confused me.

I have always said 'Shame-us'or 'Shay-muss', but that's just me.

SO...

'Seam-us' is that close to See+Muss?

Or, is the 'A' pronounced, as in See+ay+muss?

And-
'Same-us' is that like Say+Muss?

In addition, if Sean=Shawn then wouldn't Seam=Shawm and therefore
Seamus=Shawm-us or shaw-muss?

I realize my accent and sylables are in the wrong place but try to
ignore that for now.

Sorry for the distraction. Now back to your regularly scheduled
message group.

Steve/asian_lovr2

106599

From:  "Monica Coyne" <monica.coyne at tesco.net> 
Date:  Sat Jul 17, 2004  12:44 am 
Subject:  RE: Pronunciations

Just wondering, how do you pronounce Seamus Finnigan's name? Is it
pronounced "SHAME-US" or "SEEM-US"?

It's Shame-us. Rhymes with famous. Irish for James.

106605

From:  "Leeann McCullough" <libtax10375 at earthlink.net> 
Date:  Fri Jul 16, 2004  11:38 pm 
Subject:  Re:pronunciation

fxs087 at yahoo.co.uk wrote:

Just wondering, how do you pronounce Seamus Finnigan's name? Is it
pronounced "SHAME-US" or "SEEM-US"?

Leeann responds:

I suppose it's a matter of geogrophy, but I have always pronounced it
"Shame-us". Having listened to a few of the books on CD, Jim Dale uses
that
pronunciation also. Of coarse, I have always had a problem with
"Shawn" vs.
"Sean". Then my kids have on Jimmy Neutron and he has a friend named
"Sheen". I ask them, is it "Shawn" or "Sean"? They say, no mom, we said
"Sheen". So I guess it can be whatever you want it to be.
Through the years with these books, I have "mispronounced" many words and
names. Hagrid, patronis, Hermione for example. I have let Chris
Columbus and
Jim Dale set me straight. As the mother of 3, I'm used to be corrected.

106636

From:    "eldermomx3" <eldermomx3 at yahoo.com> 
Date:  Sat Jul 17, 2004  4:49 am 
Subject:  Re: Pronunciations

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "fxs087" <fxs087 at y...> wrote:
>
>
> Just wondering, how do you pronounce Seamus Finnigan's name? Is it
> pronounced "SHAME-US" or "SEEM-US"?

It is pronounced
SHAME-US

Reference: http://www.scholastic.com/harrypotter's Pronouncation
Guide.

-MJ