I'm sitting here pondering whether "F'ai" is one or two syllables... It's bothering me, and it makes a difference. Wondering what the popular opinion is.

In my head, I pronounce it Fie... like Pie, but with an F

But, I'm prolly wrong. I usually am, it seems!

"F" isn't really a syllable on its own and it sounds awkward when you say it that way, so my guess is that it's just a "fantasy apostrophe" that's there to look cool without actually doing anything. We got plenty of them floating around.

EDIT: P.S fie is already a word

I know Fie is a word. And I pronounce it like Pie, but with an F. Just like I do F'ai.

I'll agree that having the apostrophe act as a full stop to sound, thus making the word two syllables would sound weird. So I'll go with one syllable. It's not the answer I wanted, but rarely do we get such treats.

Thanks to the both of you.

I always DID say F'ai, it's the same way I pronounce Sthai.

I say it somewhere in between. It's kinda like one syllable but with a glottal stop.

I say it with a brief pause, but certainly not with an audible interruption like a glottal stop -- that would indeed sound weird! Even the pause sounds weird but I think that that's an intended weirdness.

A glottal stop kinda makes it two syllables...

Depends on how you see it, I guess. I know it's not one syllable, really, but I'm not convinced it should be counted as two, either.

One and a half syllables then.

I didn't pronounce it with a definite stop, thus separating the sound, but more as a sort of "fuh-ai" noise, but all as one syllable. If that makes any sense. It's hard to express the nuances of pronunciation textually, I suppose.

Same way I pronounce it. D'or would be "duh-or" by that same scheme.

I guess I do that too, 'Fah-eye'.

odd, where did my post go?
anyway, I pronouce it ffey

I always pronounced it Fay-ee.

I always pronounced it fuh-aye too.

What's even more amusing is when people attempt Crowtongue.

People actually try to verbalize that mess?

I pronounce it fie, both because it sounds good to the ear that way, and because it makes me grin mentally when it is said that way: "F'ai Glomdoring" means "I have no mercy". Pronouncing it as an emphatic FIE! makes me nod in agreement with the mental connotations of the cognate. It's like "I have no mercy, you cretins - how dare you assume I do?!"

Maybe I'm the only one...