Apparently, We've Been Saying 'Voldemort' Wrong All This Time

Blame the French.

J.K. Rowling gently reminded us we've all been mispronouncing the name of the terrible, no good, very bad supervillain who gave us awful nightmares as kids as we drifted off to sleep next to our copy of Harry Potter.

On Wednesday, a Potter fan tweeted this bit of trivia:

And then J.K. Rowling, who received an "O" on her Twitter O.W.L., confirmed:

That's right -- the "T" is meant to be silent. It's Vol-de-mor, not Vol-de-mort. In retrospect, we maybe should've known better, seeing as how the name derives from the French meaning of approximately "flight from death."

Hermione would be so disappointed in every one of us.

Yet, as Dumbledore so wisely stated in Book One, "Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself." In the Harry Potter universe, it's better to just say "Voldemort" instead of "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" -- presumably that still counts even if we're off by a letter.

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