I'd never heard naive pronounced as if it had a long i in niv but it appears under possible ways to do it in the more extensive online dictionaries. I know that the pronunciation of some words have changed since then, such as rodeo, chaise longue/lounge, and lingerie, Americanizing them, but this is the first one I recall that is more foreign now than then.
shareI thought the same thing. I'm familiar with a myriad of old pronunciations, as well as European pronunciations of many of the same words, and have never heard "naive" pronounced as it was in this movie. Not even in other old (including older than this) movies. My feeling is that that pronunciation was employed to emphasize the lofty out-of-touch "above them all" separateness of the snobby characters speaking it.
shareIn one of the Thin Man movies, Wm. Powell says coo-pay for coupe and Backadi for Bacardi (rum).
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Actually, coo-pay is the proper, original pronunciation of coupé : a vehicle that's been 'cut' from a full-sized one; coop is an Americanisation.
The 'Backadi' pronunciation would just be an upper-class rendering that drops the 'r'.
Nah'eeve has always been the right way to say it. Never with a long i.
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