Bryan Newell wrote: > 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... Thanks for the link. I pronounced it as you did. > 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. I grew up having no idea that rendevous and rond-de-view were the same word! I also never stopped to spell epitome to notice it was the same word that I read as epi-tome. There was a nice compound word for a wine cask the size of a hog-shead. > 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.