To-may-toh, To-mah-toh

…Ag-ah-may-toh, Ag-ah-mah-toh.

sgt136
The comic that made me an object of ridicule to my older sister and her boyfriend in the summer of 1976: Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos #136 (Oct. 1976).

Ever since I was six years old and my older sister and her boyfriend made fun of me for pronouncing Sgt. Fury as Sgt. “Furry,” I’ve been sensitive about my comic-book pronunciations. And apparently I hardly ever get them right.

Take the recent Doctor Strange film, for example. For some reason, I always pronounced “Agamotto” as AG-uh-MOH-toh (caps show accented syllables), while in the film they say “AG-uh-MAH-toh.” In hindsight, the double T’s would seem to suggest that the film pronunciation was always the proper one. (At least I got the accents right, which is some small consolation.)

But Dormammu… I think I may have a case here. The movie says it dor-MAH-moo, while I’ve always said it DOR-mah-MOO. As the spelling offers no real hints and, of course, it’s not English (or any true language) in origin, I feel my pronunciation is as legit as any.

The movie itself was enjoyable; not great but still entertaining. One note to myself for the future: Never waste money on 3D again. I thought it might add to the experience here, as the visual effects were so widely lauded, but it really added nothing. It’s 2D for me from now on.

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