My friend is arguing that Dagon is pronounced Dag like in dagger and then in so Dag-in, where I'm saying that it is most definetly pronounced Day-gon.

According to dictionary.com, your pronunciation is correct.

dey -gon

I had been pronouncing it like your friend. But then again, there are far more head-scratching names in the Cthulhu Mythos.

HPL being a snooty anglophile, I always thought it more likely that his creations be pronounced with British English inflection - and we tend to prefer 'ah's to 'ay's (even thought he single 'g' would technically make "Day-gon" the correct pronunciation).

Incidentally, Dunwich should be pronounced "Dunnich" IMO. Pronouncing the 'w' is just plain wrong, and all the more confusing when you consider that Americans do pronounce 'Greenwich' correctly.

arachnidshadow9 said:

The long A version (like the words day gone) is indeed correct.

While most names from the mythos don't really have an "official" pronunciation (and were actually meant to represent the unpronounceable), Dagon is a reference to a Semitic god (when the Philistines capture the Ark in the Hebrew Bible story, they take it to Dagon's temple).

Cheers,
Chris

I blame Buffy for my mispronounciation.

Stupid Dagon Sphere... ;-)

I pronounce it Semetically I suppose :') which would resemble a British pronounciation (as in Hebrew Dag is fish— and I'm pretty sure the words are intentionally cognate— I believe Dagon is a Babylonian God). Wikipedia has a section on the connection of Dagon with fish in semetic languages. Anyhoo. I have no idea how it would be pronounced ;') but I do know that I was taught to prounce it in Hebrew (as it is a name that appears in the Bible) as something similar sounding to Dragon (minus the r, and the a is softer, like the au in daughter).

Though I'm sure the fish people consider our monkey pronounciations absurd.

Day+Gun

Shot your gun during the day.

MrsGamura said:

I pronounce it that way, but the more I think about it the more I like Dey-gon

Criswell said:

I dont know why we say Dun-wich, Harwich is Harrich in Mass. here is a spoken pronunciation of Dunwich (as in the England one).

If you want to hear Dagon pronounced you can watch the movie. I like how Macarena calles Ezra Godden's character Pablo all the time hehe