One of the earliest questions I came up with for this interview…just idle curiosity: What are some of the most commonly mispronounced words from the series other than Lan, Aiel, Seanchan, and Shaido?
Egwene (egg-WAYNE), Taim (tah-EEM), Faile (fah-EEL), Egeanin (egg-ee-AH-nin), [???—Ethenielle? (eth-IN-ee-əl]…that’s all I can think of off the top of my head. Well, Nynaeve (nigh-NEEVE) seems to be mispronounced a lot too.
I could not even read her name when I first saw it. I was just like, “I’m going to skip her; she seems like a minor character.” And then I was like, “Aw, crap; she’s actually in this story; I’m gonna have to figure out how to actually read her name.”
I can’t believe it; I’ve actually been saying them all pretty well. It’s always a worry, especially when you’re doing a podcast, because you know, when people are going to be listening, you don’t want to start a trend if it’s not going to be the right thing.
The worst is when we get the feedback that says, “You’re not saying that right! Get your pronunciations correct; you’re supposed to be experts. Then it’s like, “No, we’re not.” We actually say a lot that we’re nowhere near experts in the series.
We’re just fans like the rest of you guys.
I still say some things wrong, but I’ve been saying them that way for a long time, so…people can get over it.
At the reading that we did at DragonCon, Brandon had to read the word “Aesdaishar” for the first time out loud, and he had to stop and be like, “I’ve never said this word before; make sure I get it right.” That was funny.
Oh, and Elayne’s brother is Galad (gə-LAHD), and Gawyn (GAH-win).
Yes! We’ve been getting those right too!
And see, I usually say GAL-id (like the word ‘gal’). I know it’s wrong, but that’s what comes out of my mouth. But I have on my little piece of paper here it’s gə-LAHD.
We’ll just chalk it up to you being southern. Gallid is the southern way of saying it.
I am from Mississippi, and I say gə-LAHD. Just saying.
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