Hermione

[Laurence Horn]

At 10:36 AM +0000 11/21/01, Lynne Murphy wrote:
>--On Tuesday, November 20, 2001 9:07 pm +0000 "James A. Landau"
><JJJRLandau at AOL.COM> wrote:
>
>>In _Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire_, pp 418f of the hardback,
>>Hermione is trying to teach Victor Krum, who is from Bulgaria, how to
>>pronounce her name.
>>
>>Victor:       "Hermy-own"
>>Hermione:  "Her-my-oh-nee"
>>Victor:        "Herm-own-ninny"
>>Hermione:  "Close enough"
>
>I wonder if Rowling put this in the book because she discovered how many of
>her readers were pronouncing it wrong.  My goddaughter and her mother had
>read all the books aloud reading 'Hermee-own', and then they got the audio
>version and panicked that their perception of the world was _wrong_.

I vividly recall Hermione Gingold from days of yore, and she was a
four-syllable Hermione (but with a schwa, i.e. "Her-my-uh-nee".  And
isn't Hermione in The Winter's Tale perforce also tetrasyllabic?

>
>>P.S.  My daughter wants to know why I'm posting a question about BRITISH
>>speech on the mailing list of the AMERICAN Dialect Society.  Shouldn't I
>>be looking for a British Dialect Society?
>
>Haven't we proposed before that we're the American [Dialect Society] rather
>than the [American Dialect] Society?
>
aha--You're right, we have.  I *knew* there was some reason that
objection didn't hold water.  But of course the brackets are silent.

larry