> > Is it possible that it's not just "Dzur" that the people at Tor were > > worried about, but the combination of "Enchantress" and "Dzur"? I've > > heard "educated" people stumble over words like "enchantress" before. > > > > That is correct. > > Good gosh, backward from what I thought. I'm amazed that people > who have problems saying "enchantress" buy books, but I guess they > know their business at Tor. > I've been reading fantasy novels and playing fantasy RPGs since I was 7 or so, and I didn't know how to pronounce "wyvern" properly (*) until Megadeth released "Five Magics" 12 years later in 1990... In my case, I spent more time reading than talking as a kid, and most of my pronunciation problems are because I learned the words by sounding them out in my head as opposed to hearing them spoken out loud. I doubt I'm alone in this problem. Then again, maybe pronunciation just isn't my forte. (That joke never works in print--and even less so since I discovered that "fortay" and "fort" are both acceptable, so now I have to use "forty", which sounds more dumb than funny...) Bryan (*) http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?wyvern, click on the speaker. My cousins, brothers, friends and I all pronounced it "wih-vern" growing up. Good thing Megadeth released that song, or I'm sure we'd _still_ be pronouncing it wrong.