[HPforGrownups] Wizengamot

[T.M. Sommers]

No: HPFGUIDX 76499

miss_america_03 wrote:
> How do you pronounce "wizengamot" 

'Wizengamot' is evidently a play on the Old English 
'witenagemot', meaning 'meeting of wise men' or 'national 
council' (according to Clark-Hall).  That word can be broken into 
'witena', evidently the genitive plural of 'wite' or 'wita', 
meaning wise man or councilor (cf. modern 'wit'), and 'gemot', 
meaning 'meeting' (the 'ge-' is a prefix).  Although it does not 
appear in Clark-Hall, 'witan', meaning member of the council, 
does appear in the OED, but not before 1807.  If that form did 
exist, the formation of the genitive plural would be more 
regular, but I guess it is really a hypothetical form.

So 'wizengamot' likely should be given Old English pronunciation 
based on that word.  In that case:

w should be w, not v as in German
i should be short, as in sit
z should probably be as in Modern English, as
   I don't think Old English had z
e should be the schwa, as in the last syllable of 'china'
n should be as in Modern English
g should be hard, as in 'get'
a should be the schwa
m should be as in Modern English
o should be as in German 'wohl', or in English 'so',
   but it is a pure vowel, not a diphthong
t should be as in Modern English

Syllabification should be wi-z en-ga-mot, although I'm not 
absolutely certain about whether the z should be in the first or 
second syllable.

Primary stress should be on the first syllable, with a secondary 
stress on the last.  The middle two should be unstressed.

As a side note, 'wizen' is a verb meaning to shrivel, so 
'wizengamot' could be a pun meaning meeting of shrivelled up old 
men'.