J.K. Rowling Says We’ve Been Pronouncing ‘Voldemort’ Wrong All These Years

Once you’ve written a beloved series of children’s books, which were in turn adapted into an equally adored franchise of movies, theme park rides, and a play, and became a near-billionaire in the process, you’re allowed to spend your day correcting people’s pronunciations on Twitter. Especially if you’re Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, and it’s a character you created.

A day after revealing it’s hip to be Hufflepuff, Rowling responded to a tweet about Voldemort:

Wait, Harry Potter’s villain is named Voldemort? I’ve been calling him Voldemont!

The “t” being silent — which is how the French say it, as does Jim Dale in the first two Harry Potter audio books — doesn’t really change anything, although ending on a soft “r,” rather than a hard “t,” sounds less menacing. Still, fans, who have already bought their plane tickets to Toronto to visit the Harry Potter-themed bar, are realizing they’ve been living a lie for 17 years.

Wait until she learns Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans don’t actually come in every “flavour.”

Anyway, this is just the kind of thing I imagine Hermione would correct everyone on. She’s the “ACTUALLY” of Hogwarts. Even when she’s right, it’s still kind of annoying.

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