How to pronounce Mammatus

[AmperZand]

I’ve just been watching a bunch of YouTube video reviews of forthcoming Ninjago Season 14/spring 2021 sets. The main antagonist is called Chief Mammatus. All of the videos I have seen so far mispronounce his name.

Mammatus is an existing word in English. It refers to a kind of pendulous, bulbous cloud formation. It’s pronounced mah-MAY-tus, not MAM-atus or mah-MAH-tus. It’s possible that the Ninjago cartoon will mispronounce it as well which would be unfortunate.

Here is the minifigure as photographed by Brickset:

Edited February 28, 2021 by AmperZand

[Alexandrina]

1 hour ago, AmperZand said:

It’s possible that the Ninjago cartoon will mispronounce it as well which would be unfortunate.

"Mammatus" isn't a common word in English, and it's also not an outlandish name to make up for a character - it's very common for people to make up random names with the '-us' ending, and given the amount of Latin words borrowed into English especially in the sciences, some are bound to also be a real word. Unless the character is specifically related to clouds (is he? I don't actually know the specifics of the upcoming series but the minifigure doesn't look especially cloud-y) I'd assume that the writers were unfamiliar with the word. As such, if the name is pronounced differently in the cartoon, the safe assumption is probably that it's an accidental homonym rather than that the Ninjago writing team researched comparatively obscure words to do with cloud science - or, indeed, were already familiar with the words - but didn't think to check the pronunciation.

[MAB]

First time I've seen him. From the name I assumed it would have been female (like the origin of the cloud name) and would have gone for MAM-mah-tus or even MAM-MAH-TUS.

[AmperZand]

1 hour ago, Alexandrina said:

Unless the character is specifically related to clouds (is he? I don't actually know the specifics of the upcoming series but the minifigure doesn't look especially cloud-y) I'd assume that the writers were unfamiliar with the word.

I very much doubt the name is coincidental. The character seems to use - or even be made of - lightning, a phenomenon associated with clouds (though, admittedly, not mammatus ones). On the device I’m writing this on, two of the three icons for ‘lightning’ also show a cloud, namely 🌩 and ⛈.

I suspect the character’s creator looked up cloud type names and thought ‘mammatus’ sounded suitable for a lightning wielding chief.

Here’s Brickset’s picture of the minifigure with his lightning staff weapon:

1 hour ago, MAB said:

First time I've seen him. From the name I assumed it would have been female (like the origin of the cloud name) and would have gone for MAM-mah-tus or even MAM-MAH-TUS.

Pretty sure the character is male despite the etymology of ‘mammatus’.

Great minifigure, don’t you think?

Edited February 28, 2021 by AmperZand

[MAB]

Yeah does look good, and male. When I said from the name, I meant just the name before looking at the figure. Chief Mamma-tus sounds very female to me.

[mrfang2]

Definitely intentional reference in the name, as the other tribe members have names like lightning and thunder keepers, they use lightning weapons, and live on an island surrounded by a perpetual storm. That said pronouncing a common word in a slightly different way isn’t exactly an uncommon way to make a name.