I recently saw one of my students graduate last week, a brilliant young man by the name of Jan who pronounces it "Yawn". It led me to question for the first time in my 25 years of reading Legion whether Element Lad's first name is to be read as Jan (like Jan Brady) or Jan (like Yawn). I've always said it like the former but I think I prefer the sound of the latter with the last name Arrah.
Posted by Eryk Davis Ester on :
It's a fairly common Scandanavian name (equivalent to "John", I believe) pronounced like "Yawn".
That's usually how I pronounce it.
Posted by the boy with UltraPowers on :
i've always said it as JAN [ as in Janet ] ..... we had a thread a while back that featured how we thought LEGIONNAIRES were pronounced etc !!
it was cool seeing/hearing how different people call the characters !!
Matthew.
Posted by Disaster Boy on :
i always did it jan. i saw an issue of the legion (*levitz) where they showed the pronunciation of the legion names in the letters column. (am i remembering right?
[ July 03, 2005, 01:35 PM: Message edited by: Disaster Boy ]
Posted by Thriftshop Debutante on :
I do know that Northern European Jan* or Jon's name is probably pronounced yawn, but when I say Element Lad's name aloud it rhymes with tan. Jan (<-rhymes with tan) uh-RAW.
*I have Jan Hammer to thank for not only the theme to Miami Vice but this info.
Posted by Eryk Davis Ester on :
I like to imagine Jan speaking with a Swedish accent, myself!
Posted by Mediocre Boy on :
This is a topic that's near and dear to my heart.
Personally, I think of him as Jan with a hard "j" sound.
Usually, the writers aren't too region specific when scripting the Legionnaires dialogue, but I do recall during the TMK 5-Year gap days that some of the Legionnaires sounded very American mid-western at times, like when they'd say "s'okay" for it's okay, for example. That was kind of neat, although I think that I prefer non-region specific dialoguing since this allows readers to intuitively choose accents for the characters themselves.
Do you know what I'd love to see as an experiment? A page of dialogue scripted in the language of interlac. Not the actual characters, but the wording itself, like when they wrote a page or two in one of the Ambush Bug comics where he briefly spoke in future english. It was so well done, in fact, that it was actually fairly comprehensible [sp?]. The writers would even have some pre-existing material to work with in the form of futuristic expletives and exclamations that have been used in past Legion incarnations, such as "My Gawn; Frak; Squaj;" and--my own personal favourite--"Grife".
In that vein, I must say that I've enjoyed the textual decisions in the current book to do such things as "blogging" the name, Tolling4rd, and spelling Brainy's use of the word God with a zero rather than an "o".
[ July 04, 2005, 01:52 AM: Message edited by: Mediocre Boy ]
Posted by joeboy on :
Ive Always Pronunced it as "Yon" (or "Yawn...depending on your spelling).
But I pronounce My name "Yosef".
But not YO
never YO.
Posted by Nightcrawler on :
I've always thought it was pronounced Jan as in the month January.
But, from now on I'm going to call him Yawn.
Posted by Sketch Lad on :
I call him Jan like Jan Brady. I also say "air-uh" for Arrah. I do like the sound of "Yawn AirAH", but it wouldn't come to me naturally.
Posted by legionadventureman on :
But as ABC once put it (paraphrase) - i would never ever "shoot that poison Arrah through my heart"...
Posted by Cobalt Kid on :
I've always pronounced it as "Jan" with a hard 'j'. But I kind of like 'yawn' with 'arrah', so I might start pronouncing it that way now.
Posted by Eryk Davis Ester on :
It's weird at first, but cool once you get in the habit of it!
Posted by Tromium on :
I thought this was an "Element Lad is boring" thread. Nevermind.
I'm sticking with the hard "j" pronounciation just out of sheer obstinacy, but the idea is not entirely without merit. The surname ARRAH (a real, albeit rare name) is English and very possibly of Norse origin. And in the Golden Age Legion story, Jan was cast as a Polish freedom fighter. The "Y" sound also applies to the Polish pronouncation of Jan.
Posted by MLLASH on :
I like the idea of pronoucning it "yawn" but can't bring myself to do it after all these years. It would be like finding out Eryk prounounces his name "aw-reek" or something...
Posted by Cobalt Kid on :
What if he took his shirt off and pronounced it aw-reek? Then he could be like a hot, dorky exchange student that gets his locker next to yours in gym class!
Posted by MLLASH on :
Poppin' hotties!
Posted by Mystery Lad on :
I always pronounced it hard J- Jan (rhyming with can) uh-RAH (sort of rhyming with 'hurrah').
Couldn't it also be 'Yan', rhyming with can? Or 'Yan', soundling like 'yon'... or even plain old 'Jon'?
I remember finding out that other readers 'heard' the names a different way when I first started interacting online-- it shouldn't have been, but it was a big surprise!
Posted by Mediocre Boy on :
Sorry MMLASH, I know that this isn't really the correct forum, but nevertheless I have to ask: is that a picture of your baby or perhaps even of yourself?
In any event, I love it! It makes me smile whenever I see it or read the status caption.
One of these days I'll have to see about personalizing and updating my own avatar or icon or whatever you call it.
Posted by Cobalt Kid on :
Mediocre- that is indeed Lash when he was a tot! There are two or three whole threads dedicated to to 'Lash-Tot' in the MMB forum, but I'll let someone else post links there
(You can see the perfect blend of cute and naughty in that pic!)
Posted by legionadventureman on :
![[I Dunno]](graemlins/urk.gif)
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)