Monday, October 12, 2009

Shower Thoughts #33

"Duel" is a tricky word for me.
Is it pronounced like "dwell", or like "jewel"? Or is it neither of those? I need to know because whenever I'm reading and it comes up, I get totally distracted and end up wasting like, 40 minutes pondering over the articulation. Which I suppose wouldn't be that big of a deal, except that I'm re-reading Harry Potter at the moment. Have you ever read Harry Potter? Do you know how often the word "duel" appears in that book? Pretty much every third sentence, that's how often.

Harry braced himself, preparing for the oncoming duel against Malfoy.

It was hard to believe that he had barely been at Hogwarts for 2 months, and Harry had already been challenged to his first duel.

"Hermione?" "Yes Ron?" "Just out of curiosity, how do you pronounce 'duel'?" Hermione opened her mouth to respond, but before she could utter a single word, Lord Voldemort cast a blanket spell that killed every English-speaking human on earth, effectively eliminating the chance of anyone ever finding out the true pronunciation of the word 'duel'.

Alright, one of those isn't entirely accurate. Can you guess which it is? And then tell me how to say 'duel'?

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