And now for a little T&A…
No. Wait. That should be Q&A. Sorry…
Dear Pat,
I know you’re busy, but how exactly do you pronounce “Kvothe?”
I know it’s similar to “quothe,” but I’m still not sure how it sounds. Can you help clarify the specific phonetic pronunciation?
The initial “kv” sound in “Kvothe” doesn’t crop up in standard English that often. But it does appear in the Yiddish term “kvetch.”
The “o” is the same as in “roll” or “hole.”
The “e” is silent.
If you’ve been pronouncing it wrong, don’t sweat it. You’re not alone. I’ve heard a lot of different pronunciations over this last year:
Kvahthe. (With the middle sound like you’re saying “Ahhh” at the doctor’s office.)
Kvothay. (With the ending rhyming with “prey.”)
Kvothee, Kvahthay…. No no no. You’re all making it harder than it needs to be. That’s why I put that bit in right at the beginning of his story. “My name is Kvothe, pronounced nearly the same as ‘Quothe.'”
Kv + Quothe = Kvothe. Simple.
Still, even this confusion makes me happy. I remember the Raistlin/Rastlin arguments me and my friends had years ago.
Wow, that’s a warm fuzzy thought. My first year in college, out at someone’s house, drinking homemade sangria in their kitchen and arguing about Dragonlance. I remember thinking, “I never knew there were this many people like me out in the world.”
Those were good times. It almost makes me want to not post this up. That way, people can have that same sort of pointless argument about my book as I used to have about Weiss and Hickmann’s.
Nah. I’ll leave this up. That way when there’s an argument, y’all can step in and seem supercool because you’ve got the inside scoop.
Oh, and one other thing. Tarbean isn’t pronounced tar + bean.
It’s tar + bee + en. The end is similar to how you say “Caribbean.”
And now you know…
pat
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