You’re reading a novel and there’s a character’s name you’ve always said one way in your head. Sometime later you hear the author say the name and surprise, you’ve been saying it wrong. So now when you read the book, do you say it your way or the “right” way? And does this slow you down?
I switch back and forth, usually, depending on if I recall what the intended pronunciation is at the moment and how strong my habit is of using the wrong pronunciation. It took me a long time to consistently pronounce Darkseid “Dark-Side” and not “Dark-Seed”, like I’d grown up using.
Argh! This drives me batty. I try to hear it the author’s way, but then I slip back into “my” way and then I hit this literary mental speedbump where I correct myself and yank myself right out of the story, and then eventually I descend to using my version until I put the book down for a bit, at which point it starts all over again.
Exception: Hermione. Thank goodness I finally heard someone say it out loud. Sounds so much better, even in my head, than “Hermy-own.”
It’s still my way to me. He/she may have written the book, but I get to interpret it how I please when I read it. At that point it’s my book, not the authors.
Depends how deeply the habit’s set, which in turn depends on how long I’ve been hanging out w/ the particular character, but I’m more likely to keep on doing it my way.
Special circumstance: I’ve taken to doing my absolute best to always call Cersei and Tyrion’s brother “Hi-may,” a la the Spanish name, even though I was first exposed to GRRM’s preferred pronunciation (not a reader of the books at this point). This is just because GRRM’s habit of slightly idiosyncratic spellings of English words/names irks me very mildly, and so I feel the need to be a bit of a dick about it.
I have the problem that Whynot has, which is why I asked if it slows anyone down. Then I forgot to put the slowing down part in the poll.
OMG, I have one name that has plagued me since jr high. I had to do an oral book report on the Great Gatsby in 7th grade. Each book had 2 students working independently. Luckily I went 2nd. The other kid said Bew-canon for Buchanan, which totally messed my mind up. I went home that day and asked my mom how to pronounce it. I’m so glad that happened because I would have really been embarrassed. I had read the whole book saying Buck-uh-non. It’s a fairly common name, I just had never seen it written before. 35 years later and I still hear Buck-uh-non in my head. So stupid!
Yep. Most often, I’ll stick with what I’m accustomed to, but, once in a while, I’ll make the effort (and it is an effort!) to correct myself.
I also treasure an old Peanuts strip where Linus is reading The Brothers Karamazov. Asked, “Don’t all those Russian names bother you?” he answers, “No. When I come to one I can’t pronounce, I just bleep right over it.”
I’ve read a lot of “bleep” fiction of that nature. “Cholmondeley Farquhar” is likely to come across as Chief" to my mental ear.
I don’t think I’ve had that exact scenario come up, but I’d likely switch to the author’s pronunciation since it would be canon. The problem is, there’s a good chance everyone else would still be pronouncing it my/the old way which means, when discussing it, I’d come of as either saying it wrong, sounding like an ass for correcting people or sounding like a douche for saying it differently (like those people that have never set foot out their home state in the US and say arse instead of ass).
When Paul Martin was prime minister of Canada, I had to ask my friend in Montreal on the phone whether he pronounced his name in French or English. It is a very common name among French Canadians, too. In case you’re wondering, the PM is English, not [POHL mar-TANN].
Oddly, I usually don’t pronounce complicated names when I read them. I just file the name away based on the rough pattern of letters, and go to the next word. I sometimes don’t know how many syllables a name has, or notice an odd combination of vowels in the middle somewhere.
If I stumble over a name more than once I usually just give up and come up with my own version of it, either the best I can do or the first syllable, which would probably be that person’s nickname IRL.
Not that it was that hard, but upthread I saw Cholmondeley, in that case, if that was a complicated name, I’d just call him Chol. I did this quite a bit when I tried to read Anna Karenina. The names were eventually what prevented me from getting too far in that book. I’ve mentioned this before, but because the book has Russian names, the nicknames threw me. In English, if a person is called Richard in one chapter and Dick in another, it’s no big deal. In this book they might be Darya or Stepan in one chapter and a few chapters later Dolly or Stiva. It would take me several pages to even realize that they were the same person from before (usually based on who they were romantically connected with IIRC). Then I had to go back and skim those pages again to see what I missed based on this new knowledge. I got kinda sick of doing that.
I will NOT pronounce Prof. Charles Xavier’s name as Eggzavier. It’s Zavier. No egg.
I pronounce the Game of Thrones character’s names my way, because I don’t watch the TV series. I always pronounced Cersei as “Ker-SAY” and Daenerys as “Day-na-REES” and such shall it always be.
I see they are going to make a series based on the Shannara books, and I have always pronounced it as “Sha-NAR-ra” but the author pronounces it “SHAN-er-ruh” so that will be annoying to make the adjustment.
Not that character but in general, I never liked Zavier. The only one I knew (in real life) was pronouced eksavier, though we usually called him X (actually Father X, he was a priest).
I sort of slur it. A little like “c-zavier” or maybe “h-zavier.” Not a full “ex” but a kind of brief little sound at the roof of the mouth.
I’ve never actually met a Xavier!
I’m the same way. My reading tends to be visual rather than auditory, if that makes any sense.
So, for example, I can read David Brin’s Uplift novels and see names like Brma, Creideiki, F’ruthian, g’Kek, Gl’kahesh, Qheuen, Sstienn, Tytlal, Uthacalthing, and Vriiilh - or even J’8lek, Karrank%, and Mrgh’4luargi - and pass over them without thinking about how they sound. I just notice the name and recognize future references to it in the text.
Father Xavier? A priest and he didn’t know how to pronounce Xavier? That’s tragic.
Going to slide this one over to CS.
I have never read The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but the Wikipedia page says that Stevenson pronounced Jekyll with a long e, Jee-kill, and that is the way it is pronounced in the 1931 Fredric March film. Stevenson died in 1894, and surely some around in 1931 had known him or heard him speak.
By 1941, the Spencer Tracy version, it had changed to Jeck-ill, and that is all you hear today. Saying “Jee-kill” will get you strange looks. I can find a number of citations assuring the correct pronunciation, but nothing about why it was changed.