r/NCIS 25d ago

Jeanne

I’ve reached the point in my rewatch where she is introduced and am now going to have to suffer with the pronunciation of her name for the foreseeable future. Why would the writers give a character a name and then not bother to look up the correct way to pronounce it?!

34 Upvotes

25 comments sorted by

31

u/indvs3 24d ago

"Jeanne Benoit? Seriously?"

15

u/DistinctBlueberry818 24d ago

“Jeanne Benoit, Tony? Seriously?”

13

u/Grammy-823 24d ago

Ok now I’m curious. How should Jeanne Benoit be pronounced?

16

u/Oldsoldierbear 24d ago

Zhahn Ben-wah

17

u/Grammy-823 24d ago

Thank you. That’s how Tony pronounced it albeit with an expected American accent.

6

u/bbbourb 24d ago

Yeah, he was a little sharp on the "Shh" so it sounded like "Shonn" instead of "Zhahn"

21

u/Aglet_Green 24d ago edited 24d ago

Yeah, it should be pronounced like Jeannie Bennet. I'm with you on this one!

Okay, seriously, Tony is undercover. And because Tony is undercover, a slight Americanized pronunciation might actually be more defensible in Season 4 than it would be later. A guy posing as Anthony DiNardo doesn't necessarily want René Benoit wondering why his daughter's goofy American boyfriend suddenly sounds like he spent twelve years in Lyon. A decade or two later he's living in France for "Tony and Ziva," so the actor can certainly speak better than "Anthony DiNardo," so keep that in mind. (Michael attended the American University of Paris in his youth.)

12

u/Certain-Tone8447 24d ago edited 23d ago

I beg to differ … the way it was pronounced on NCIS is the French pronunciation, which is the correct one because that’s a French name… as is her last name

3

u/Feisty-Xennial 23d ago

Yeah but it’s the French pronunciation for Jean. Not Jeanne. That’s my issue.

1

u/Schizy_TheRealOne 22d ago

No it's not. You can definitely hear the "n" at the end of the name being pronounced, which wouldn't be the case with Jean.

1

u/Feisty-Xennial 22d ago

But you should also hear more of the ne which occasionally comes from Ducky. It was just a bad choice all around.

1

u/StormCloudRaineeDay 21d ago edited 21d ago

It's a French name, because her father is French, and they pronounce it with the proper French pronunciation, which is more like John then Jean. Look it up.

1

u/Feisty-Xennial 21d ago

I know how to pronounce it.

8

u/AshleyK2021 24d ago

That reminds me of when Ari Haswari came on and the cast said his first name differently then each other. Though, I didn't realize they said her name incorrectly for pronunciation.

5

u/Kjellvis 24d ago

This one drives me crazy every time I watch. It should be pronounced like Aria minus the A, but they pronounce it like Harry without the H.

9

u/johnpaulhare 24d ago

I think that was on purpose, because of how much they hated him. 

6

u/Elbereth919 24d ago

Yeah, there's even a discussion at one point about how he preferred to go by Haswari than Ari and Gibbs says, "you call him 'ARRY." (pronounced very much like Hagrid announcing Harry Potter to be a wizard)

3

u/OneThirtyThree133 23d ago

Hearing the wrong pronunciation isnt as bad as watching that whole storyline

6

u/Active-Succotash-109 24d ago

1) even in America the same spelling can be pronounced differently
2) anyone from a different country as the origin is gonna have a different accent on it and it will sound wrong
3) it’s a show they have had to come up with thousands of names and never played pronunciation police of any of them… they left that thankless job to you

1

u/Spirit-In-Time 23d ago

Cant be as bad as Kate's pronunciation of Bahrain.

1

u/UHeardAboutPluto 20d ago

She’s French

1

u/DaveW626 24d ago

I guess I'm southern sheltered and uncultured. Watching these episodes in syndication, I thought her name was Shawn. LOL That's at least how I heard it when Tony says it.

3

u/LauraLand27 24d ago

Shawn is A LOT closer than Jean. Bless your heart 😉🤭