Famous Wizards' Names

[Kamard]

It'd be wrong of me to mention "twelfth" as being an almost silent 'f' in a 'lf' combination.

Thats not the question.

The question was to come up with a word in the english language that is spelt: letter-e-l-f, that does not rhyme with self.

Not to find a word that ends with "th" that doesn't pronounce the f.

 

[Zhure]

I didn't realize Melf was an american

 

[IceBear]

Yeah, he fought in the War of Independence I think

IceBear

 

[Kamard]

I didn't realize Melf was an american

Shin Okada
Member

Registered: Jan 2002
Location: Tokyo, Japan
Posts: 177

I didn't realize the original poster may or may not speak English as his first language.

Rather than being a smart mouth giving fourteen different ways for something to be pronounced, lets try to give Shin one way to pronounce the word that is more or less correct for the most english-speakers. Because I know I pronounce the word Melf "mel", like one of your options.

 

[IceBear]

I pronounce it Melf as in "self" but replacing the "s" with a "m"

IceBear

 

[Lucius Foxhound]

Actually, Melf is a real person. He invented the Acid Arrow and went on to more fame. Here's Melf's web site.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

There we have it: He likes travelling and getting to know other cultures. I think that's where he aquired that weird "petunia" pronounciation. But the site's not complete: he doesn't list "Zaubersrpüche erschaffen" amongst his hobbies and forgets to tell that he can speak arcane netherese in addition to English and French.....

 

[0-hr]

I actually was working under the assumption that Melf was a fictional character made up by someone from, or living in, Wisconsin.

That was a good response though Zhure (although it seems to indicate that the only silent f in our language is found in the word "fifth"; which does not contain the substring "elf"). And actually, I don't think the f is really all that silent even in "fifth"...

 

[Zhure]

- "fifth" is indeed a silent 'f' before the 't' but is often pronounced. The more correct pronunciation in American English leaves it unvoiced. (A non-silent second 'f' isn't incorrect, just less correct. If pluralized, that 'f' becomes unsilent again. English is wonky.)

- Shin's post count is deceptive. He knows my answer was facetious.

- Made-up words, especially made-up names, can be pronounced a variety of ways, although the most difficulty is in the vowels.

 

[The Souljourner]

Neither Twelfth nor Fifth have a silent f. If you don't pronounce it, it's because you're pronouncing it incorrectly. Of course if you pronounce twelfth correctly you may get a cramp in your tongue, but that's neither here nor there.

Now, Kamard gave good descriptions of the pronunciations of the names, though I pronounce a couple of them differently, none of his looked glaringly wrong.

These are the two I pronounce differently, caps represent the accent is on that vowel.

Evard - EH-vard
Mordenkainen - MORE-den-KANE-en

So... there you have it, names of wizards as typical americans would pronounce them. Is that the correct way? Who knows? Only the people who came up with the names can actually say what is correct and what is not.

-The Souljourner