Pronunciation

[eloiseherisson at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 52667


Richard:

>That 
> Americans seem mainly to pronounce it SEE-rius comes as an err...
>serious 
> ... shock. :-)

Corinth:
>I've actually never heard anyone pronounce the "i" quite that long. I
>always pronounced it /i../ (like in near, here, serious), but I think
>that simply due to sloppyness on my part. I don't know about the
>British accent, but in American English the phonomes /i../ and /i/ (as
>in sit, hit) tend to blend together in the combination ir.

Eloise:

Jumping in late!
I think that we pronounce 'serious' differently and that that is part of the 
problem here.
If I'm correct, I think that the American pronunciation has a shorter first 
'e' sound than the British (I'm talking gross generalisation here as I 
realise that accents and pronunciations vary across both countries). But I'd 
suggest there's a greater tendency for a Brit to pronounce 'serious' as 
'seerious'

On the animagus-i question, as one with a Latin background, I pronounce with 
hard 'g's in both cases. But I would observe that the word, 'magi' is 
commonly pronounced with a soft 'g'. I believe this is perfectly acceptable 
English pronunciation (as is fungi, which I of course, also pronounce with 
hard 'g', but never mind). In fact it's the Oxford Dictionary pronunciation. 

As for knuts, I always pronounce the 'k', by analogy with King Knut (Canute), 
but more as k'nut than k'newt (I tried to insert the phonetic spelling, but 
it doesn't work). I'm sure the Scandinavians will correct my pronunciation! 
;-)

And Lucius? I say Loose'-ius (and it doesn't have to be by analogy to 
anything    as it's a perfectly acceptable, if old-fashioned English name. In 
fact, in Agatha Christie's _Murder in the Vicarage_, there's both a Lucius 
and a Mrs Lestrange.)

On the other hand, anyone with a lisp (and many English people do have!) 
couldn't help saying Loosh'-ius (and this, I see is the pronunciation listed 
in Chambers Dictionary).

~Eloise
    
(who used to be very frustrated by the insistence of the riding school she 
patronises pronouncing the names of two of the horses, 'Hay-grid' and 
'Draaco' and is equally frustrated, as Latinists will appreciate, that the 
single mare she purchased from them was already named 'Gemini'.)



    
    



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]