Most mispronounced words

[Invader]

Inspired by some of the posts in the terrible player thread I thought we need one for the most mispronounced words.

One of the ones that bugged me the most was a DM that would say (me-lee) instead of (may-lay) even when everyone else said it correctly.

[torrasque666]

Prestidigitation

[lsfreak]

Blackguard's gotta be up there (blaggard is the more normal spelling), not helped by the fact that they introduced Grey Guards as a paladin-but-rougher.

EDIT: Had a player consistently mix up ascetic and aesthetic. Same person had another one too, and it really bothered me, but it's escaping me now. Coup de grace as "coo de grah" is probably one of the big ones too.

[atemu1234]

My accent (even though I've been raised Midwestern, I speak with an accent described by some as the bastard child of a British and Irish accent) makes it difficult for me to pronounce a lot of names.

[Honest Tiefling]

I have a lisp. No word with an 's' sound is safe from me.

[Chronos]

I mispronounced "tarrasque" until just a few years ago, as did many people I've known. It's supposed to be two syllables, "tar-ask" (he's French), but a lot of folks say it with three, "tear-a-skay"

[atemu1234]

I mispronounced "tarrasque" until just a few years ago, as did many people I've known. It's supposed to be two syllables, "tar-ask" (he's French), but a lot of folks say it with three, "tear-a-skay"

I pronounce it with a Q, but two syllables.

[SiuiS]

Inspired by some of the posts in the terrible player thread I thought we need one for the most mispronounced words.

One of the ones that bugged me the most was a DM that would say (me-lee) instead of (may-lay) even when everyone else said it correctly.

I so that. Melee is both an English word and a French one. The English one has a softer overall approach to the vowels and the English mouth also has a softer overall approach to vowels, which can shorten it to sound like meelee from may-lay > m'lay or ma'lay > m'layee > m'lee.


Prestidigitation

I... What... How?


I mispronounced "tarrasque" until just a few years ago, as did many people I've known. It's supposed to be two syllables, "tar-ask" (he's French), but a lot of folks say it with three, "tear-a-skay"

Huh. They do? I never encountered that one.

Blackguard as one word, aye. It's weird though, because the pronunciation of it as blaggard is just a cultural mispronounciation of black guard. We've come full circle.

[Oracle_of_Void]

I find that some people have trouble pronouncing a certain class feature of the Pathfinder's Summoner. Ee-dew-lon? Eye-doh-lin? Its the latter (I think). Can't really begrudge people for it though, its a somewhat obscure word that you've probably read it more often than hear it.

[Invader]

Oh yeah I definitely pronounce coup de grace as coup de gracie but that's more for fun as opposed to I don't know how to actually say it lol.

[torrasque666]

Prestidigitation
I... What... How?

I either pronounce it as prestigiation or prestidigigigation.

For some reason I can never pronounce it right. Too many I's I guess.

[Andezzar]

Coup de grace as "coo de grah" is probably one of the big ones too.A hit/blow of fat (coup de gras, that's how you would spell the sounds you wrote down in french) also makes a lot less sense than a blow of mercy (coup de grâce).

Prestidigitation
Where's the problem? Sleight of hand
It's press-tea-digit-ation (http://media.merriam-webster.com/soundc11/p/presti01.wav) by the way. Or just call it by what it means: quick finger action

To my shame I only recently found out that the four limbed dragons are pronounced like Why, Vern? (http://media.merriam-webster.com/soundc11/w/wyvern01.wav)

[off-topic]What was the proper pronunciation of THAC0, Thack-oh?[/off-topic]

[Amphetryon]

I find that some people have trouble pronouncing a certain class feature of the Pathfinder's Summoner. Ee-dew-lon? Eye-doh-lin? Its the latter (I think). Can't really begrudge people for it though, its a somewhat obscure word that you've probably read it more often than hear it.

My groups tend toward "Idle-On," which worked nicely for the Synthesist. "Idle-on, Idle-off" describing whether she was in her mech armor or not.

[MilesTiden]

[off-topic]What was the proper pronunciation of THAC0, Thack-oh?[/off-topic]

Thack-oh or Thake-oh both work.

[ZamielVanWeber]

Blackguard's gotta be up there (blaggard is the more normal spelling), not helped by the fact that they introduced Grey Guards as a paladin-but-rougher.

I had a friend who kept calling Blackguard "blaggard" until the DM finally got so angry he shouted "Will you stop saying blaggard! That sounds like a derogatory term for a [REDACTED]!" His window was open at the time too. We all nearly died laughing.

I admit when I was young I often talked about the mighty coop de grace. Then I took French.

[goto124]

One of the ones that bugged me the most was a DM that would say (me-lee) instead of (may-lay) even when everyone else said it correctly.

Wait, that's how melee is pronounced? I need to spend more time in the Overbright.

Is wyrm supposed to be pronounced as worm? You can imagine the confusion it causes.

[Andezzar]

I had a friend who kept calling Blackguard "blaggard" until the DM finally got so angry he shouted "Will you stop saying blaggard! That sounds like a derogatory term for a [REDACTED]!" His window was open at the time too. We all nearly died laughing.I don't get it. What [redacted] term are you talking about? Blaggard does sound a lot like braggart though.

[TheIronGolem]

I'm guilty of pronouncing "necromancy" as "neh-CROH-mun-see".

I know it's wrong, and that it should be "NEC-ro-man-see".

And it's only that specific word. I pronounce "necromancer" and "necromantic" correctly, as well as any other variation of Whatevermancy (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Whatevermancy).

But dammit, "neh-CROH-mun-see" just sounds right to me. I will say it until I die, whereupon I will presumably spend an ironic-hell eternity as the undead slave of a guy calling himself a "neh-CROH-munser".

[nyjastul69]

Row, row, row your drow, or...

How now brown drow?

[DrMotives]

Drow rhymes with cow. That's the only thing I dislike about Patrick Warburton's voice acting in the Skylander's game, he says drow to rhyme with row.

[Andezzar]

Drow rhymes with cow. That's the only thing I dislike about Patrick Warburton's voice acting in the Skylander's game, he says drow to rhyme with row.Of course it rhymes with 5row (http://media.merriam-webster.com/soundc11/r/row00003.wav) according to Merriam-Webster (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/row)

[nyjastul69]

Of course it rhymes with 5row (http://media.merriam-webster.com/soundc11/r/row00003.wav) according to Merriam-Webster (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/row)
Wow! I've never heard that pronunciation before.

[MilesTiden]

How do you pronounce...?

Here are some commonly mispronounced words and their dictionary pronunciations where they are available and common-practice pronunciations or TSR rulings where they not. For more general pronunciation help, see the article "Ay pronunseeAYshun gyd" by Frank Mentzer in Dragon #93 (Jan. 1985). For help pronouncing words and names specific to the Forgotten Realms setting, see the Forgotten Realms box and the trilogy of Forgotten Realms deity books. For help pronouncing the names of the various tanar'ri and baatezu types, see MC8 Outer Planes Appendix.

...
Drow: DRAU (as in drowsy; rhymes with now and how)
...

This (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/DnDArchives_FAQ.asp) is the most convenient article. :>

[Flickerdart]

I had a friend who kept calling Blackguard "blaggard" until the DM finally got so angry he shouted "Will you stop saying blaggard! That sounds like a derogatory term for a [REDACTED]!" His window was open at the time too. We all nearly died laughing.
Well, it's not exactly a nice word.

[Werephilosopher]

Fharlanghn. Is it FAR-lang? far-LON-gin? Who even knows?

[Duke of Urrel]

Do we all agree that the word Glamer should be pronounced so as to rhyme with "slammer", not so as to rhyme with "gamer"?

Actually, I have a complaint about the spelling of this word. Shouldn't it be spelled "Glamor" or "Glamour"?

[Honest Tiefling]

Iyachtu Xvim. I...Just don't know. I refuse to use him simply because of his name.

[atemu1234]

Do we all agree that the word Glamer should be pronounced so as to rhyme with "slammer", not so as to rhyme with "gamer"?

Actually, I have a complaint about the spelling of this word. Shouldn't it be spelled "Glamor" or "Glamour"?

In homebrew I use the three interchangeably, though I prefer most glamour.

[Taveena]

Eilistraea... Eilistraeea? Eil- the good drow goddess.

[NotScaryBats]

I used to call a Chimera a CHI-me-ra with a CH sound like in choo choo train. I did the same for chitin and lichen because I was not taught that a CH could make a Kai sound in my early education.

[Flickerdart]

I used to call a Chimera a CHI-me-ra with a CH sound like in choo choo train. I did the same for chitin and lichen because I was not taught that a CH could make a Kai sound in my early education.
You've gotta be chitin me.

[robgrayert]

Magus. I literally don't know what the right way is.

[atemu1234]

I used to call a Chimera a CHI-me-ra with a CH sound like in choo choo train. I did the same for chitin and lichen because I was not taught that a CH could make a Kai sound in my early education.

I've been surprisingly good at foreign language pronunciation and English vocabulary; it comes with having siblings a minimum of half a decade older than oneself.

[Duke of Urrel]

Oh yeah I definitely pronounce coup de grace as coup de gracie but that's more for fun as opposed to I don't know how to actually say it lol.

I have a favorite mispronunciation of my own. I like to pronounce the word Geas like "jazz."

[Jeraa]

Fharlanghn. Is it FAR-lang? far-LON-gin? Who even knows?

Deities and Demigods says its far-lahng-un.


Eilistraea... Eilistraeea? Eil- the good drow goddess.

Faiths and Pantheons - eil-iss-tray-yee


Iyachtu Xvim. I...Just don't know. I refuse to use him simply because of his name.

I don't remember which book it was in (I think it was an older edition book) but my notes say - ee-yach-tu zvim

[DrMotives]

Most people pronounce chimera with a hard K sound at the start, but Cerberus I usually hear as Serberus. The Greeks said that name with a hard K sound as well, but frankly Care-bear-us doesn't sound so frightening as Serberus, so I usually say that one wrong.

[Flickerdart]

Magus. I literally don't know what the right way is.
Mei-gus. Rhymes with Vegas. The clue is that "magi," the plural which everyone is familiar with because of the jesus thing, has the same starting syllable.

[Psyren]

My DM often pronounces "Eidolon" as "ee-DOH-lun" or "EYE-dough-LAWN." Neither is correct.

I see a lot of players pronounce "geas" as "JEE-ass" or "GHEE-ass" also.

[atemu1234]

Mei-gus. Rhymes with Vegas. The clue is that "magi," the plural which everyone is familiar with because of the jesus thing, has the same starting syllable.

I've heard that one pronounced may-ji though.

[Andezzar]

This (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/DnDArchives_FAQ.asp) is the most convenient article. :>Come on that thing is not very helpful. They think they need to tell us that the H in herb is silent? That is not the only correct pronunciation (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/herb). Their proposed pronunciation of geas is plain wrong (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/geas).

I don't know but zack-NAY-fee-in does not roll off the tongue. In my mind Drizzt's father will always be ZACK-nah-feyn. I wonder how they would suggest pronouncing the female version of that name (Zarafae).


I've heard that one pronounced may-ji though.

Mei-gus. Rhymes with Vegas. The clue is that "magi," the plural which everyone is familiar with because of the jesus thing, has the same starting syllable.I think MAH-gee (with a g as in gulf) would be pretty close to what the romans might have said.

[Vhaidara]

I have a favorite mispronunciation of my own. I like to pronounce the word Geas like "jazz."

We had
Gee-ahs
Gee-ass
Jee-ahs
Jee-ass
Geese
and the dwarven pronunciation
gay-ass.

Yes, the dwarf requested the casting of the gay-ass spell. That set the entire table laughing.

[Sayt]

Gaol.

I'm a humanities undergrad and only just figured out it's Exactly. The. Same. As. Jail.

Oh, but the shame.

Also, Cerberos. It's supposed to be a hard c, as in Cat. Blame the Romans, the greeks used a kappa.

[Honest Tiefling]

TIL I am an idiot when it comes to the English language. I also have problems with the word 'Scythe'.

[Andezzar]

Also, Cerberos. It's supposed to be a hard c, as in Cat. Blame the Romans, the greeks used a kappa.Just call him Spot, problem solved. It is one of the possible origins of the word. I loved it when Jim Butcher did that in Skin Game.

[Marlowe]

Minotaur. It's a long "i" sound, people. It means "Bull of Minos". You know; like "King Minos". You don't call the guy "King Minnows" do you?:smallmad:

Yugoloths and possible Fey'ri owe their existence as races to TSR not being sure how to pronounce "Daemon" or "Faerie".

Out of interest, do you say AaSSimar or AaSH-imar? I have no idea which is correct.:smallbiggrin:

[atemu1234]

Minotaur. It's a long "i" sound, people. It means "Bull of Minos". You know; like "King Minos". You don't call the guy "King Minnows" do you?:smallmad:

Yugoloths and possible Fey'ri owe their existence as races to TSR not being sure how to pronounce "Daemon" or "Faerie".

Out of interest, do you say AaSSimar or AaSH-imar? I have no idea which is correct.:smallbiggrin:

I always pronounced Aasimar Ay-sim-ar.

[Honest Tiefling]

Out of interest, do you say AaSSimar or AaSH-imar? I have no idea which is correct.:smallbiggrin:

The one that doesn't imply they are planetouched of outsiders from the Plane of Butts. I think Yugoloth is from the period where DnD was accused of converting people to the devil, actually.

[Vhaidara]

Minotaur. It's a long "i" sound, people. It means "Bull of Minos". You know; like "King Minos". You don't call the guy "King Minnows" do you?:smallmad:

:shifty:

no...

[Flickerdart]

You know; like "King Minos". You don't call the guy "King Minnows" do you?:smallmad:
King Meenos.


I've heard that one pronounced may-ji though.
Isn't that the same sound?


I think MAH-gee (with a g as in gulf) would be pretty close to what the romans might have said.
It's a Greek word, the Romans can stuff it.

[Crafty Cultist]

In my younger days I would talk about the pre-request-ites for feats and prestige classes.

[Duke of Urrel]

I always pronounced Aasimar Ay-sim-ar.

According to one theory (http://community.wizards.com/forum/previous-editions-general/threads/2156786), the word aasimar is derived from the Arabic masculine proper name Aasim, which means "guardian" or "protector." This would suggest the pronunciation "AH-si-mar."

Assuming that the word is German or Dutch would suggest the same pronunciation, but I don't know what the word would mean then.

On the other hand, assuming that the name is Scandinavian would suggest that it should be pronounced "OH-si-mar" and might alternatively be spelled as Åsimar.

[sreservoir]

It's a Greek word, the Romans can stuff it.

magi is definitely a latin word, if one borrowed from greek, but that doesn't even matter because the greek vowel is also nothing like the english vowel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Greek_phonology#Long_vowels)

also discussing vowel sounds in english is basically a losing proposition because this is the language where all the vowels got mangled but the words describing them didn't so now the words make no sense (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift)

[RedMage125]

Blackguard as one word, aye. It's weird though, because the pronunciation of it as blaggard is just a cultural mispronounciation of black guard. We've come full circle.
That's the one I see the most often.

That, and...

Row, row, row your drow, or...

How now brown drow?
I used to mispronounce it until Baldur's Gate 2 Shadows of Amn corrected me. Incidentally, the expansion also included the pronounciation of the elemental race, the Genasi, Which is pronounced gen-AH-see. Not "Jen-a-sai", not "jen-AH-see". Hard G at the begining and ends with a long E sound.


WotC used to have a guide, but it's fallen off the site. Thankfully, ENWorld copy/pasted it a long tie ago, and input some more Link here (http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?151-D-D-Pronunciation-Guide#.VK9h-SvF-no).

Otyugh (in the guide) was one I used to be confused about.

[Sam K]

Lucubration.

[T.G. Oskar]

Count me also for "Blackguard", though it's surprising that "blaggard" ends up being a mispronunciation of its own. Funny how that can happen. You know, like "cupboard". Who would have thought it's pronounced "ca-bord"

Our table tends to have some problems with the term "Legerdemain". I feel I do the closest pronunciation ("le-jher-deh-men", approximating to the French pronunciation for "quick of hand", which is pretty much what Prestidigitation and Sleight of Hand mean ;) ), though I feel I might be wrong on the last syllable, mostly since it's the same way I pronounce "main gauche" ("men goshh" or "man-goshh"). The confusion comes from how to properly pronounce "main", since the only other way I can find to pronounce it is trying to approximate it to the Spanish word for hand ("mano", which is pronounced "mah-noh"). One of my friends, though, can't really pronounce it, and cuts it to "Legermain" ("lager-main").

I'd pronounce "Iyachtu Xvim" as "ee-YAKH-too ks-VEEM", but that depends on what kind of pronunciation it tries to emulate: the X on "Xvim" could be like the Greek letter X ("Khi") or, based on the entire word, could even be like the Spanish "J" (the same way Hispanics use the X as J; see México/Méjico, Xímena/Jímena and Xeréz/Jeréz ["sherry"]), which would suggest either "khee-VEEM" or "hgh-VEEM"). Also, I'd pronounce the I and the Y in a way where the I ends up being silent.

Others that can be confusing are Ixixtachitxl and Chwidencha, though I suspect the latter could be "choo-ee-den-chah" (proncouncing "choo-ee" at unison; could be "koo-ee-den-ka", but that depends on the sound of the CH on Native North American languages).

[P.F.]

I'd pronounce "Iyachtu Xvim" as "ee-YAKH-too ks-VEEM"

I generally just sneeze then clear my throat, I can't imagine the authors had anything else in mind. The downside is, I can't say it without mispronouncing it horribly, unless I really have to sneeze.

[Deox]

I'd pronounce "Iyachtu Xvim" as "ee-YAKH-too ks-VEEM"


This is almost correct, according to one of the 2nd Edition FR books I have. The book shows it as "ee-YAKH-too z-VIM"

Granted, I recall reading recently somewhere that showed a pronounciation (region dependant) of "zay-vim"

[Renen]

Up until very recently i totally though Phylactery has an s instead of the c.

[A_S]

"Theurge" gives a lot of people trouble, including the handbook author, apparently (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?224999-The-Urge-to-Theurge-A-Theurge-Handbook-WIP).

I had no idea how to pronounce "geas" for a long time, and only figured it out after I was mocked for mispronouncing it and then looked it up (it's "ghesh" more or less).

"Aegis" certainly doesn't get pronounced correctly very often. Only moderately annoying in D&D, where it's mostly used to refer to Aegis Fang. More annoying in DotA.

I actually have no idea how the "ch" in "archmage" is pronounced.

[Renen]

I had no idea how to pronounce "geas" for a long time, and only figured it out after I was mocked for mispronouncing it and then looked it up (it's "ghesh" more or less).


I pronounce it the same way its pronounced here (And I dont mean the picture. I mean the anime the picture is referencing. Though there its spelled Geass):
http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/code_geass_r2small.jpg

[lsfreak]

Fharlanghn. Is it FAR-lang? far-LON-gin? Who even knows?
I always assumed it was pseudo-Irish, and as jokes pronounced it assuming they knew what they were doing. Roughly AR-lahng-ghin ['ar.la͂ŋ.ɣn], because in Irish <fh> is not pronounced.


Iyachtu Xvim
The first I'd assume is ee-YAHTCH-too. The second I'd go back and forth between chveem (with Hebrew/German ch) or shveem (Aztec/Mayan feel).


Magus. I literally don't know what the right way is.
Correct is may-gus. I'm one of those crazies that analogically leveled it with magi, and pronounce it madj-us, which I'm sure causes cringes.


Minotaur. It's a long "i" sound, people. It means "Bull of Minos". You know; like "King Minos". You don't call the guy "King Minnows" do you?
I agree with Flickerdart, it's King Meenos. And it's a short i: child/children, south/southern, Minos/minotaur.


Others that can be confusing are Ixixtachitxl and Chwidencha, though I suspect the latter could be "choo-ee-den-chah" (proncouncing "choo-ee" at unison; could be "koo-ee-den-ka", but that depends on the sound of the CH on Native North American languages).
Did you mean Ixitxachitl? That would be ee-shee-CHA-chitl, though we don't have that last <tl> sound in English and I'd expect most people to pronounce it as a separate syllable and shift the stress forward so it stays on the second-to-last (it also doesn't *quite* make sense, because Aztec has that <tl>, but doesn't distinguish between <ch> and <tx>. Some Mayan languages have that distinction, similar to the distinction between q/ch in Mandarin or ć/cz in Polish, but they don't have <tl>. But I'm probably overthinking things...) And chwee-DEN-tchah. Afaik most native american languages have <ch> identical to English church, not hard like (Anglicized) Greek, nor "throaty" like Hebrew or German (or actual Greek). Those are generally kh (and often qh, with kh being the softer Greek/Russian sound and qh the harder Hebrew/(stereotypical) German).

I maybe should throw out that my intuitive English pronunciation of things has been thrown waaaaay out of whack studying linguistics.

[T.G. Oskar]

Did you mean Ixitxachitl?

Yeah. You know, for writing it from memory, I was incredibly close - switched "tx" to "xt" and added another "X" to the term, even if "tl" is what suggests one should use pronunciation as a Nahuatl speaker.


[...](it also doesn't *quite* make sense, because Aztec has that <tl>, but doesn't distinguish between <ch> and <tx>. Some Mayan languages have that distinction, similar to the distinction between q/ch in Mandarin or ć/cz in Polish, but they don't have <tl>. But I'm probably overthinking things...)

Considering that it's hard even for a Spanish speaker (you'd only get the right pronunciation if you were a Nahuatl speaker or someone from Mexico, and even then, not all of Mexico). I'd pronounce it "tl" and stress the "l" sound, but I've heard "tl" is close to "ché" (like the friendly term for a "Jose") or "té" when it ends a word. Sort of how "xocolatl" ended up as "chocolate".

[A_S]

I pronounce it the same way its pronounced here (And I dont mean the picture. I mean the anime the picture is referencing. Though there its spelled Geass):
http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/code_geass_r2small.jpg
How is it pronounced for the anime? I only know of its existence because of google searches when I'm looking for the D&D term.

[NNescio]

How is it pronounced for the anime? I only know of its existence because of google searches when I'm looking for the D&D term.

ghi-ah-su, which is no way close to how it should be pronounced (in both the original Irish and its anglicized pronunciation.)

According to my dictionary's pronunciation guide (written in IPA), it should be pronounced like mesh, but with a hard 'g' instead of an m.

Irish has almost the same sound, but the initial consonant is closer to a soft 'g' (like jump or genie) instead (but not quite, as the consonant does not exist in English).

As for the Magus/Magi debate, eh, I prefer the Latin pronunciation, as they are basically unmodified Latin words. Oh sure it came from Greek Μάγος, but the initial vowel is closer to an /a/ instead of an /ei/ anyway, and if we go all the way back it's ultimately derived from Ancient Persian, which is like... mah-yu or something?

Plus I prefer pure vowels instead of bloody diphthongs. Especially if they are muddied all over the place, like they tend to be in English.

[Windrammer]

Expeditious retreat.

Everyone I know says "Expedious".

[Eldan]

To my shame I only recently found out that the four limbed dragons are pronounced like Why, Vern? (http://media.merriam-webster.com/soundc11/w/wyvern01.wav)

Huh. And I was so sure that it was Wee-vern.

Anyway. The names of the Planes. They are almost all Latin or Greek, and by Asmodeus, that's how I'll pronounce them. If players pronounce it "Escheron" instead of "Acheron", they should be prepared to be stranded on a plane made up entirely of staircases with malfunctioning subjective gravity.

[The Grue]

Minotaur. It's a long "i" sound, people. It means "Bull of Minos". You know; like "King Minos". You don't call the guy "King Minnows" do you?:smallmad:


I agree with Flickerdart, it's King Meenos. And it's a short i: child/children, south/southern, Minos/minotaur.

Minotaur is an English word, for which min-uh-tawr is an accepted pronunciation.

You're probably thinking of the Latin root word, Minotaurus, or the Ancient Greek Μῑνώταυρος. The Greek pronunciation would, I believe, be "mee-noe-taoo-dose".

We actually get the English word from Latin via French, rather than directly from the Ancient Greek - hence, the different pronunciation of vowel sounds from the root words.

[georgie_leech]

ghi-ah-su, which is no way close to how it should be pronounced (in both the original Irish and its anglicized pronunciation.)


Well sure, if you watch the sub. Why would you expect the Japanese to pronounce it the same way it would be pronounced in English? As well be surprised that someone with a thick German accent says "Welcome" differently. :smalltongue:

For the record, the dub pronounces it GEE-ahs, sort of like the martial arts outfit (gi) that students wear, followed by a sound like the "Las" in "Las Vegas."

[NNescio]

Also, Wujen.

Bonus points because almost every single native Chinese speaker will mispronounce it, due to unfamiliarity with Wade-Giles romanization. Heck, most Western speakers will probably pronounce it better (which is the point of Wade-Giles.)

Original is one of those tricky 'r' sounds, and like English 'r's (where people with different dialects pronounce it differently), native speakers of Chinese may differ in how they pronounce it (with some sounding more like a 'z' or a curled 'j')


Well sure, if you watch the sub. Why would you expect the Japanese to pronounce it the same way it would be pronounced in English? As well be surprised that someone with a thick German accent says "Welcome" differently. :smalltongue:

For the record, the dub pronounces it GEE-ahs, sort of like the martial arts outfit (gi) that students wear, followed by a sound like the "Las" in "Las Vegas."

I watch the raws. :smalltongue:

--

Next word...

How do you pronounce "Giga-"? Is the first g a soft 'g', or a hard one?

"1.21 jiggawatts?!"

--

Joke entry:

Mispronouncing "rouge" as "rogue".

[The Grue]

Now, another common point of contention...

How do you pronounce "Giga-"? Is the first g a soft 'g', or a hard one?

Depends whether or not you're travelling through time with a DeLorian (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dy-dFUtuPA8).

EDIT: Ninja'd.

[Curmudgeon]

One of the ones that bugged me the most was a DM that would say (me-lee) instead of (may-lay) even when everyone else said it correctly.

melee
[mey-ley, mey-ley, mel-ey]
According to Dictionary.com (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/melee?s=t), we've got three ways of pronouncing the word correctly.

[Eldan]

How do you pronounce "Giga-"? Is the first g a soft 'g', or a hard one?

"1.21 jiggawatts?!"

--

Joke entry:

Mispronouncing "rouge" as "rogue".

When in doubt, I go with Greek/Latin for everything. Especially for words that come from Greek or Latin. So, two hard Gs.

[NNescio]

When in doubt, I go with Greek/Latin for everything. Especially for words that come from Greek or Latin. So, two hard Gs.

But if we go with Graeco-Latin, g is soft before an /e/ or /i/ (and 'y', if it acts as a vowel).

e.g.
Magus -> Mah-goose (hard g)
Magi -> Mah-gee (soft g)

[Brother Oni]

The Greeks said that name with a hard K sound as well, but frankly Care-bear-us doesn't sound so frightening as Serberus, so I usually say that one wrong.

Cerberus with a hard C hasn't sounded frightening since I learned of Kerberos from Card Captor Sakura:

http://ami.animecharactersdatabase.com/uploads/chars/4758-290188515.jpg


Also, Wujen.

Bonus points because almost every single native Chinese speaker will mispronounce it, due to unfamiliarity with Wade-Giles romanization. Heck, most Western speakers will probably pronounce it better (which is the point of Wade-Giles.)

Original is one of those tricky 'r' sounds, and like English 'r's (where people with different dialects pronounce it differently), native speakers of Chinese may differ in how they pronounce it (with some sounding more like a 'z' or a cur;ed 'j')

I would like to point out that there's less similarity between some dialects of Chinese than English has to Russian, so understandably there's some differences in pronouciation and they're not wrong in doing so.

Doing some digging, wu jen (巫人) in Wade Giles is wu ren in Pinyin and mou4 jan4 in Jyutping (jan4 sounds close to 'yan' as in 'Yan Can Cook').

English speakers butcher chinese terms just as badly though - feng shui (風水) is a major culprit. It's 'foong soy', literally wind/water, not 'feng shway'.

[A_S]

According to my dictionary's pronunciation guide (written in IPA), it should be pronounced like mesh, but with a hard 'g' instead of an m.

Irish has almost the same sound, but the initial consonant is closer to a soft 'g' (like jump or genie) instead (but not quite, as the consonant does not exist in English).
The second pronunciation given on the wikipedia page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geis) lists it as the voiced palatal stop [ɟ]; I assume that's the sound you're describing? If so, I would expect it to also give a little bit of 'y' character to the beginning of the vowel, like "gyesh," along with the somewhere-between-g-and-j ambiguity. Yeah?

[NNescio]

Cerberus with a hard C hasn't sounded frightening since I learned of Kerberos from Card Captor Sakura:

http://ami.animecharactersdatabase.com/uploads/chars/4758-290188515.jpg



I would like to point out that there's less similarity between some dialects of Chinese than English has to Russian, so understandably there's some differences in pronouciation and they're not wrong in doing so.

Doing some digging, wu jen (巫人) in Wade Giles is wu ren in Pinyin and mou4 jan4 in Jyutping (jan4 sounds close to 'yan' as in 'Yan Can Cook').

English speakers butcher chinese terms just as badly though - feng shui (風水) is a major culprit. It's 'foong soy', literally wind/water, not 'feng shway'.

Maybe I should had specified "Mandarin" instead of Chinese. （I studied in a school which language of instruction is in Mandarin Chinese, and the name for the language subject itself was inevitably translated as "Chinese" when I requested an English-version of my report card for overseas study purposes.) Wu jen/Wu ren is unmistakably Mandarin (So Jyutping would be inappropriate, as it is for Cantonese). It's just that native speakers of Mandarin Chinese, like native speakers of English (and a host of other languages) may differ in how they pronounce the 'r', unlike other consonants, which tend to be more uniform.

Also, foong soy is Cantonese, not Mandarin. Mandarin would be closer to feng shoei.


The second pronunciation given on the wikipedia page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geis) lists it as the voiced palatal stop [ɟ]; I assume that's the sound you're describing? If so, I would expect it to also give a little bit of 'y' character to the beginning of the vowel, like "gyesh," along with the somewhere-between-g-and-j ambiguity. Yeah?

Yeah, you're spot on.

--

Another word, "über".

It's EEW*-ber, not OOO-ber. Yes, it's from German. Not, that doesn't mean every single German word has to be pronounced with a "guttural accent". No the umlaut doesn't make it sound more guttural or anything! If anything, the umlaut shifts the vowel sound to the front, instead of to the back where all the guttural sounds are!


(All the freaking heavy metal bands didn't know any better and just put it in there because they think it makes it look scarier.)

(*Okay, technically it's more like a u with an e in the end (which is why it is sometimes spelt as "ueber"), or more precisely, it's a 'u' with the sound shifted slightly to the front of the mouth.)

[Yael]

This (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/DnDArchives_FAQ.asp) is the most convenient article. :>

:O

Now I know the "why" of the Animated Series Handbook :OI do love the Energy Bow *o*

Also, Ixitxachitl... Where do I... Ugh... I-CHI-CA-TLI? I am Mexican, actually, and pronouncing the names of the Aztec Gods as Quetzalcoatl, or the name of my country's most famous volcano (Popocatepetl) isn't hard at all, but... I had trouble even typing it...

[ILM]

Going with the popular misspelling of Incantatrix, where people drop an entire syllable ("Incantrix") I suspect that class must often be the subject of mispronunciation too.

[OttoVonBigby]

Never even attempted it:
Achaierai
Ahuizotl
Huecuva

[Firechanter]

Someone from one of my groups repeatedly, persistently pronounces Coup de Grace as [cup de grayce], which always makes my toenails curl. My subtle attempts to correct him by saying [koo de grass] have remained fruitless.

[Brother Oni]

Maybe I should had specified "Mandarin" instead of Chinese. （I studied in a school which language of instruction is in Mandarin Chinese, and the name for the language subject itself was inevitably translated as "Chinese" when I requested an English-version of my report card for overseas study purposes.)


No worries. I'm just tired of people assuming that Chinese is a single monolithic language and that every native speaker knows every dialect (not to mention the times people ask me to translate stuff written in simplifed characters).


Wu jen/Wu ren is unmistakably Mandarin (So Jyutping would be inappropriate, as it is for Cantonese).

I fully agree with both points, just highlighting the fact that the original characters could be translated legitimately either way. Incidentally wu jen is also unmistakably Wade Giles since the jen romanisation doesn't exist in pinyin.


Also, foong soy is Cantonese, not Mandarin. Mandarin would be closer to feng shoei.

I don't know Mandarin very well, so I'll defer to you on this. That said, the majority of Westerners' contact with fung shui in earlier times would have been through the practioners in Hong Kong, which spoke Cantonese as standard. :smalltongue:

[RedMage125]

Geas I actually learned how to pronounce from a Piers Anthony novel I read when I was 12, Geas Of The Gargoyle.

Wyvern, according to the pronunciation guide, is correct both as "why-vern" and "wih-vern".

Ixitxachitl: iks-it-ZATCH-i-til or ik-zit-zah-chih-tull.

Mage: MAGE (as in age), *not* MADGE (as in badger). Given that, I generally go with Magi "MADJ-aye" and Magus "MAY-gus".

Huecuva (M): hyoo-KOO-va

[Andezzar]

Minotaur is an English word, for which min-uh-tawr is an accepted pronunciation.

You're probably thinking of the Latin root word, Minotaurus, or the Ancient Greek Μῑνώταυρος. The Greek pronunciation would, I believe, be "mee-noe-taoo-dose".Dose? the ρ is a rho which makes an r sound. Otherwise you are spot on


According to Dictionary.com (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/melee?s=t), we've got three ways of pronouncing the word correctly.Interestingly none of them are MEE-lee or meh-LEE which you hear quite often in my experience.




Another word, "über".

It's EEW*-ber, not OOO-ber. Yes, it's from German. Not, that doesn't mean every single German word has to be pronounced with a "guttural accent". No the umlaut doesn't make it sound more guttural or anything! If anything, the umlaut shifts the vowel sound to the front, instead of to the back where all the guttural sounds are!


(All the freaking heavy metal bands didn't know any better and just put it in there because they think it makes it look scarier.)

(*Okay, technically it's more like a u with an e in the end (which is why it is sometimes spelt as "ueber"), or more precisely, it's a 'u' with the sound shifted slightly to the front of the mouth.)AFAIK English does not have that sound, but French does. Just listen to the french recite the alphabet. what they say for the letter u is that sound. For those intersted in hearing über, click here (http://dict.tu-chemnitz.de/speak-de/5/4/qQYCDtl7UYc.mp3).

And yeah, that must be a product of the entertainment industry thinking they need to make the German bad guys sound more scary. A few weeks ago, I found an interesting little video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuxgMGBymos) on this, not by a native German speaker but In this video I could not discern that the speaker's mother tongue isn't German.


Going with the popular misspelling of Incantatrix, where people drop an entire syllable ("Incantrix") I suspect that class must often be the subject of mispronunciation too.It isn't that far off, and not even completely wrong. It just as a slightly different maeaning. (in)cantare is the frequentative (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequentative#Latin) of (in)cannere. So Incantrix would by a female who incants and an Incantatrix is a female that frequently incants or who continues to incant. Now I wonder does an Incantatrix have the same requirement to use sounds as a bard?

[Jeff the Green]

It isn't that far off, and not even completely wrong. It just as a slightly different maeaning. (in)cantare is the frequentative (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequentative#Latin) of (in)cannere. So Incantrix would by a female who incants and an Incantatrix is a female that frequently incants or who continues to incant. Now I wonder does an Incantatrix have the same requirement to use sounds as a bard?

Sort of. While that's what the frequentive originally meant, many just came to replace or be synonymous the originals so you'll see canto just as "I sing" (as it is in modern Romance languages). In fact, some Latin verbs were replaced by their frequentative so early we don't even have them in writing (e.g. we have gusto but not *guno). One source I found did suggest that cano has the connotation of me singing something I wrote while canto has the connotation of me singing something someone else wrote. (Apparently cano also has other definitions like "I hoot" or "I prophesize" or "I blow [e.g. a trumpet]".)

For incanto specifically, it derives from canto. There never was an incano. In this case incanto specifically means to recite magic words or to consecrate with spells, not to sing. Incantatrix therefore really just means "magician".

[Andezzar]

Yeah there are some other differences too. I just wanted to say that dropping the "at" deviates a lot less from the original word than for example switching the u and g in rogue.

[Eldan]

Still "female magician", though. Which is why I prefer to call males Incantator.

[Andezzar]

Still "female magician", though. Which is why I prefer to call males Incantator.Isn't that RAW?

[Malimar]

Nobody (not even dictionaries) seems to be able to decide between "kray-ken" and "krah-ken". This debate showed up in one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, as I recall.


I used to play with somebody (in City of Heroes) who pronounced "buff" (and "debuff") as "byoof" (and "de-byoof").



Minotaur. It's a long "i" sound, people. It means "Bull of Minos". You know; like "King Minos". You don't call the guy "King Minnows" do you?:smallmad:

Actually, I do pronounce "Minos" that way, so I also pronounce "Minotaur" with the short "i". Can't break the habit, despite knowing the allegedly proper pronunciations.


Out of interest, do you say AaSSimar or AaSH-imar? I have no idea which is correct.:smallbiggrin:

This is the biggest one I'm really not sure on, because I haven't found any official guides to its pronunciation. I pronounce it "aah-sih-mar", but "ass-si-mar" and "ay-si-mar" are also common in my experience.


Another word, "über".

My favorite part is that pronouncing (or spelling) this word without the umlaut yields a Latin word meaning "udder" (my Latin-English dictionary gives "milk-filled breast").

[Ssalarn]

Iyachtu Xvim. I...Just don't know. I refuse to use him simply because of his name.

I generally just sneeze whenever I need to say his name.

[ZamielVanWeber]

I don't get it. What [redacted] term are you talking about? Blaggard does sound a lot like braggart though.

Think a very inappropriate term for a black person.

[Ssalarn]

Think a very inappropriate term for a black person.

I feel like you've got to be seriously mispronouncing it to get to that. "blaggard" is a correct pronunciation though, and until fairly recently you wouldn't even see "black-gard" as a valid pronunciation in a dictionary (unless you go way way back).

[ZamielVanWeber]

I feel like you've got to be seriously mispronouncing it to get to that. "blaggard" is a correct pronunciation though, and until fairly recently you wouldn't even see "black-gard" in a dictionary (unless you go way way back).

It wasn't mispronunciation. The DM just thought that blaggard sounded like a deragatory term for a black person. The fact that he said [redacted] just made it hilarious.

[Rogue Shadows]

Eilistraea... Eilistraeea? Eil- the good drow goddess.

Oh come on, that one had a pronounceation guide in her FRCS entry. Eel-ihs-tray-ee.

...but on that note, three which I mispronounced constantly before apparently being told what-for by Baldur's Gate.

Baatezu: Bay-ah-teh-zoo. But I was pronouncing it Bah-teh-zoo.
Tiefling: Teef-ling. But I was pronouncing it tie-fling, as in the word tie.
Bhaal: Bahl. One syllable, a as in father. But I was pronouncing it like the Canaanite god Baal, which is pronounced bay-uhl.

I still don't know if aasimar is ah-sih-mar or ay-ah-sih-mar or ah-see-mar or ay-ah-see-mar.


Ahuizotl

Ah-wee-zohtl.

The tl is pronounced as a single syllable, as in the word little. It's a Nahuatl (the native languages of the Aztecs) word, the tl sound is fairly common in it: Huitzilopoctli, Quetzalcoatl, Tlatoc, Tenochtitlan, Tlaxcala, and so on.

I know how to pronounce this specifically thanks to My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, though. There's a villain in it who's an ahuizotl...named Ahuizotl.

[Necroticplague]

I always pronounce "eidolon" as eye-ee-doh-lon. I've also heard ee-do-lon and ae-do-lon, though. Still have no clue which is right.

[Ssalarn]

I always pronounce "eidolon" as eye-ee-doh-lon. I've also heard ee-do-lon and ae-do-lon, though. Still have no clue which is right.

Apparently eye-doh-lahn is correct (at least according to my dictionary...)

[Flickerdart]

I always pronounce "eidolon" as eye-ee-doh-lon. I've also heard ee-do-lon and ae-do-lon, though. Still have no clue which is right.
When in doubt, use a rebus.

Eye. Doll. Lawn.

[kardar233]

Bhaal: Bahl. One syllable, a as in father. But I was pronouncing it like the Canaanite god Baal, which is pronounced bay-uhl.

Pet peeve: Baal's name is actually pronounced with a glottal stop in the middle, as "ba-al". As much as I loved Diablo II:LoD, I could punch the Blizzard devs for perpetuating this by having the characters pronounce it "bay-ul".

[DrDeth]

Ancient Greek has no soft C sounds. This makes Circe sound "kirk- ee".

Elvish is the same. Keleborn. Kirdan.

I though gnoll was Guh-noll?

[Andezzar]

I though gnoll was Guh-noll?Isn't it pronounced like knoll (http://media.merriam-webster.com/soundc11/k/knoll001.wav)?

[Honest Tiefling]

Pet peeve: Baal's name is actually pronounced with a glottal stop in the middle, as "ba-al". As much as I loved Diablo II:LoD, I could punch the Blizzard devs for perpetuating this by having the characters pronounce it "bay-ul".

Considering they turned the god of storms into one of the most evil entities in that universe...I'm actually okay with them mispronouncing it. Its also Diablo, the game where you try to get as far as possible from overly-chatty NPCs. No, I won't stay a while and listen! You don't control me, old man!

[Rogue Shadows]

Ancient Greek has no soft C sounds. This makes Circe sound "kirk- ee".

On that note, in Latin, there is no j, it's supposed to be an i, an initial i is pronounced like a y, c is always hard, ae is pronounced "eye", ai is pronounced "ay", u is almost always pronounced like the oo in food, v makes a w sound, i when not initial is pronounced ee, s is never slurred into a z, and h is always silent. You're also supposed to trill your r's whenever possible, like with a Spanish rr.

This kind of ruins Latin.

Gaius Iulius Caesar: Gay-oos Yoo-lee-oos Kie-sar (the last as though the German kaiser with a proper s sound and an ar instead of an er, and in fact that's where the word kaiser comes from, the Latin name Casar. The Russian word for emperor also comes from Caesar, which is why the cs spelling is the most correct out of Csar, Tsar, Tzar, and Czar. Though I most prefer Tsar).

Octavianus: Ohc-tah-wee-ah-noos

Augustus: Ahw-goos-toos

Veni, vidi, vici: weh-nee wee-dee wee-kee, and not veh-nee vee-dee vee-chee

Haebeus corpus: Eye-bay-oss kor-poos

Roma: Rroh-mah (that is, with a trilled r)

Reductio ad absurdum: rray-dook-tee-oh ahd ahb-soor-duhm (again, trilled r)

Et cetera: eht keht-er-ah

[SiuiS]

Up until very recently i totally though Phylactery has an s instead of the c.

Huh. Totally changes the flow of the word. Philostry, basically. I like that, but... Yeah. Phylactery I've always had down. Now, words I read and couldn't figure a proper speak of? Epitome (epic book?) and astronomy; I couldn't get the emphasis right, and went with Astro nommy. Oh, and cadaver. I read Cada like Cadillac, and a deemphasized ver. It was so bad that when someone said cadaver I asked what they were talking about. They spelled it and it clicked~


"Theurge" gives a lot of people trouble, including the handbook author, apparently (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?224999-The-Urge-to-Theurge-A-Theurge-Handbook-WIP).

I had no idea how to pronounce "geas" for a long time, and only figured it out after I was mocked for mispronouncing it and then looked it up (it's "ghesh" more or less).

"Aegis" certainly doesn't get pronounced correctly very often. Only moderately annoying in D&D, where it's mostly used to refer to Aegis Fang. More annoying in DotA.

I actually have no idea how the "ch" in "archmage" is pronounced.

Archmage is a hard K for the ch. it uses the (I get these backwards so bear with me) arch from Greek meaning higher or greater, not the arch from Latin meaning a curve that supports a structure.

I don't... What's wrong with theurge? A few of these "I can't believe y'all mispronounce [obscure word]!" Don't explain why. XD

Geas is an Irish word, so as a loan word it could indeed be gee-as (soft S, not like ass. No goose-miles here!), but the original word can also be anglicized as geis and the plural was, I believe geisa. I know the S after an I is a sybilant, but I can't remember if the diphthong also applies. Actually, all I remember of Irish right now is wishing I didn't learn so much Scots, it made relearning a chore...


Huh. And I was so sure that it was Wee-vern.

Anyway. The names of the Planes. They are almost all Latin or Greek, and by Asmodeus, that's how I'll pronounce them. If players pronounce it "Escheron" instead of "Acheron", they should be prepared to be stranded on a plane made up entirely of staircases with malfunctioning subjective gravity.

~<3


Never even attempted it:
Achaierai
Ahuizotl
Huecuva

Hard ch, Ack-eye-err-eye. Or ah-Kye-yer-eye, the basic gist.
Ahuizotl is a fun one. Ah-(hwee)-Zoh-tl. Tl is a sound I can't help with though, if you're not used to words like quetzacouatl. The hwee has the same... curve as the u after q in queen (kween).
Hueceva is... Actually, I don't know anymore. Hyuu-coo-vah, I think.



Interestingly none of them are MEE-lee or meh-LEE which you hear quite often in my experience.

Compare them again. The third given pronunciation is equivalent to me'lee.


Still "female magician", though. Which is why I prefer to call males Incantator.

That's canonical. It's supposed to be that way, but nobody seems to care. XD

What I wanna know is, does the feminine -ix come from or sound like or just happen to be superficially similar to the feminine -ess?


I feel like you've got to be seriously mispronouncing it to get to that. "blaggard" is a correct pronunciation though, and until fairly recently you wouldn't even see "black-gard" as a valid pronunciation in a dictionary (unless you go way way back).

Nt so much. For example, niggle and naggle is a term form weedling, digging into something; nitpicking. There's another permutation using [blank] and nagger unsteady of niggle and naggle. This means that both the N-I-G and N-A-G are sort of connected in the minds of some Americans. Blaggard could easily lose the -d at the end, and both B and N are close enough phonetically to make the connection.

A similar; a growler is apparently a low iceberg, small enough to be unseen and below the water but big enough to damage a boat. Talking about running into a growler though sounds like running through a lot of dog poop. It's the background radiation changing associations of words.

[danzibr]

Huh. I mispronounced some things. Tarrasque being tar-a-skew, and I did a short i for the first i in prestidigitation.

[Amphetryon]

On that note, in Latin, there is no j, it's supposed to be an i, an initial i is pronounced like a y, c is always hard, ae is pronounced "eye", ai is pronounced "ay", u is almost always pronounced like the oo in food, v makes a w sound, i when not initial is pronounced ee, s is never slurred into a z, and h is always silent. You're also supposed to trill your r's whenever possible, like with a Spanish rr.

This kind of ruins Latin.

Gaius Iulius Caesar: Gay-oos Yoo-lee-oos Kie-sar (the last as though the German kaiser with a proper s sound and an ar instead of an er, and in fact that's where the word kaiser comes from, the Latin name Casar. The Russian word for emperor also comes from Caesar, which is why the cs spelling is the most correct out of Csar, Tsar, Tzar, and Czar. Though I most prefer Tsar).

Octavianus: Ohc-tah-wee-ah-noos

Augustus: Ahw-goos-toos

Veni, vidi, vici: weh-nee wee-dee wee-kee, and not veh-nee vee-dee vee-chee

Haebeus corpus: Eye-bay-oss kor-poos

Roma: Rroh-mah (that is, with a trilled r)

Reductio ad absurdum: rray-dook-tee-oh ahd ahb-soor-duhm (again, trilled r)

Et cetera: eht keht-er-ah

I have no doubt these are all the pronunciations you were taught (and possibly teach, in turn). There are some differences evident from how my Latin teachers instructed me in pronunciation, though; for instance, there's "Gaius," which I was consistently taught - by multiple teachers - to say as "Guy-us."

[Ssalarn]

A similar; a growler is apparently a low iceberg, small enough to be unseen and below the water but big enough to damage a boat. Talking about running into a growler though sounds like running through a lot of dog poop. It's the background radiation changing associations of words.

The various scenarios relating to the Titanic and a big steaming growler that ran through my head as a result of this statement have elevated this to one of my top 10 favorite threads ever.

Thank you.

[Rogue Shadows]

I have no doubt these are all the pronunciations you were taught (and possibly teach, in turn). There are some differences evident from how my Latin teachers instructed me in pronunciation, though; for instance, there's "Gaius," which I was consistently taught - by multiple teachers - to say as "Guy-us."

Fair enough. Latin was diffuse enough by the end of the Empire that there were numerous dialects, anyway - to-may-to, to-mah-to, basically.

The point is that the Latin actually spoken by, say, Julius Caesar, or Scipio Africanus, or even Romulus Augustulus (the last Emperor of the West), sounded almost, but not quite, exactly unlike the modern Church/Legal Latin that most people think of when they think of Latin - hay-bee-us cor-puhs, veh-nee vee-dee vee-chee, and so on.

That last one is the biggest change. When I hear veh-nee vee-dee vee-chee I think of the noble Caesar, fit, armored and battle-stained, standing on a foggy, forested hilltop somewhere in Gaul looking down upon the newest province he has added to the Republic. When I hear weh-nee wee-dee wee-kee, Caesar is now short, fat, and drunk, looking like nothing so much as that wine-sculling Greek from the pastoral scene in Fantasia.

[PraxisVetli]

I'm not entirely sure on how to say Acheron.
Also, Ioun stones come up a lot.
Fairly certain its eye-oon.

[Rogue Shadows]

I'm not entirely sure on how to say Acheron.

In English, ash-er-ohn, though I've also heard ahk-er-on.

In the original Greek, ach-air-ohn, with the ch pronounced like in German or Scottish or Yiddish (ich, loch, chutzpah, and so on)

[Odin's Eyepatch]

I still do not know how to say svirfneblin.

When I first found it, my brain broke down under the number of consonants, and I said "svleusleusla" (or something weird like that).

[Andezzar]

In the original Greek, ach-air-ohn, with the ch pronounced like in German or Scottish or Yiddish (ich, loch, chutzpah, and so on)Which one is it? The ch in "Ich" (http://voix.larousse.fr/allemand/10982all2.mp3) and "Loch" (http://dict.tu-chemnitz.de/speak-de/0/1/pyWcUe-rn1E.mp3) are pronounced quite differently.


I still do not know how to say svirfneblin.I believe it is sverve-nebb-leen

[Duke of Urrel]

Which one is it? The ch in "Ich" (http://voix.larousse.fr/allemand/10982all2.mp3) and "Loch" (http://dict.tu-chemnitz.de/speak-de/0/1/pyWcUe-rn1E.mp3) are pronounced quite differently.

You pronounce a German ch as in "ach" after a, o, or u. You pronounce it as in "ich" after e, i, ö, ü, or y. So Acheron as an "ach" in it.

[Ssalarn]

I still do not know how to say svirfneblin.

When I first found it, my brain broke down under the number of consonants, and I said "svleusleusla" (or something weird like that).

Dude, it's pronounced exactly like it's spelled, duh.

In all seriousness though, I do think it's svirf (rhymes with smurf)-neb-lin.

[MilesTiden]

Dude, it's pronounced exactly like it's spelled, duh.

In all seriousness though, I do think it's svirf (rhymes with smurf)-neb-lin.

I know how to say it myself, but I just pronounce it smurf-nibblet because it amuses me. :smallbiggrin:

[Flickerdart]

Dude, it's pronounced exactly like it's spelled, duh.
I'm not even 100% on how it's spelled.

[Agent 451]

I still do not know how to say svirfneblin.

When I first found it, my brain broke down under the number of consonants, and I said "svleusleusla" (or something weird like that).

I remember the first time I ever encountered one in a game. The DM wasn't sure how to say it, so he called them smurfnibblings. It stuck.

After several pages, I am incredibly surprised that no one has brought up Shillelagh.

[dascarletm]

Oh yeah I definitely pronounce coup de grace as coup de gracie but that's more for fun as opposed to I don't know how to actually say it lol.

I too used to have a bunch of people in our group who would yell out, "He is helpless! Coop Day Grace!" It too was intentional.

[RedMage125]

Aasimar I cannot find official pronunciation on, but I've always said "AZ-uh-mar", due to the double "a" followed by single "s". For some reason, it made me think that the s had an almost "z" like sound.

[Faily]

After several pages, I am incredibly surprised that no one has brought up Shillelagh.

It's pronounced shi-lay-lee. I think I stress the two l's too much when I say it, due to how my own native tongue works, but I notice that I don't have much problem pronouncing most of the words or names in D&D. I'll tribute it to having a good understanding of European languages.

As for Aasimar, I always pronounced it straight out as I would've done in Norwegian (without making the double A into an Å-sound), so: ah-see-ma-r.

[Invader]

Very recently two people in my group were pronouncing bulette as bullet. I really had to bite the bulette on that one :smallamused:

[Invader]

I still do not know how to say svirfneblin.

When I first found it, my brain broke down under the number of consonants, and I said "svleusleusla" (or something weird like that).

I always take the Swedish chef approach to svirfneblin.

[P.F.]

Very recently two people in my group were pronouncing bulette as bullet. I really had to bite the bulette on that one :smallamused:

They were pronouncing it either correctly, or almost correctly, anyway. The proper pronunciation is "bull-ET."

The pronunciation in the Monster Manual is wrong.

[SirKazum]

Heh, this thread is really amusing to me. As a Brazilian I've always pronounced all those names in a rather Latin way. So, say, "drow" for me rhymes with... doe? I guess? and "aasimar" is more like "ah-ah-zee-mahr" (I like pronouncing double A's as two separate consecutive vowels, also in names like "Baal" and "Baatezu", which for me rhymes with "zoo"). I realize the vast majority of that is completely against the intention of the game designers, but I don't care :P

Also, one pet peeve of mine, after seeing Rich misspell it repeatedly: it's Heucuva (http://www.lomion.de/cmm/heucuva.php), not "huecuva"! GAH! I guess my pronunciation actually makes misspelling things like these harder, because it would mean the difference between "he-oo-koo-vah" (the "e" pronounced as the "a" in "at") and "hoo-eh-koo-vah". I'll pronounce every vowel clearly.

And "boo-lay" for bulette makes no friggin' sense whatsoever. It's obviously meant to sound French-like, but an ending like "ette" in French would be pronounced with a very clear T sound at the end. Ironically, what would probably sound like "boo-lay" in French is the word bullet (if it was a French word).

[Jeff the Green]

Double vowels I swap back and forth between. If they seem Semitic, I'll do a glottal stop (Ba'alzebul) like Hebrew; if they sound vaguely Native American I'll hold a bit longer (the only such language with double vowels I know anything about, Navajo, does this); if they're basically European mishmash I pronounce them as though they were one.


On that note, in Latin, there is no j, it's supposed to be an i, an initial i is pronounced like a y, c is always hard, ae is pronounced "eye", ai is pronounced "ay", u is almost always pronounced like the oo in food, v makes a w sound, i when not initial is pronounced ee, s is never slurred into a z, and h is always silent. You're also supposed to trill your r's whenever possible, like with a Spanish rr.

This kind of ruins Latin.

Gaius Iulius Caesar: Gay-oos Yoo-lee-oos Kie-sar (the last as though the German kaiser with a proper s sound and an ar instead of an er, and in fact that's where the word kaiser comes from, the Latin name Casar. The Russian word for emperor also comes from Caesar, which is why the cs spelling is the most correct out of Csar, Tsar, Tzar, and Czar. Though I most prefer Tsar).

Octavianus: Ohc-tah-wee-ah-noos

Augustus: Ahw-goos-toos

Veni, vidi, vici: weh-nee wee-dee wee-kee, and not veh-nee vee-dee vee-chee

Haebeus corpus: Eye-bay-oss kor-poos

Roma: Rroh-mah (that is, with a trilled r)

Reductio ad absurdum: rray-dook-tee-oh ahd ahb-soor-duhm (again, trilled r)

Et cetera: eht keht-er-ah


I have no doubt these are all the pronunciations you were taught (and possibly teach, in turn). There are some differences evident from how my Latin teachers instructed me in pronunciation, though; for instance, there's "Gaius," which I was consistently taught - by multiple teachers - to say as "Guy-us."

There was a switch in preferred pronunciation by Classics scholars sometime in the last Century (I'm so good at being specific), and while neither of those pronunciations are the old ones I expect some got stuck in the middle. I learned them (also by multiple teachers) as:


Guy-oose Eeoo-lee-oose Ky-sar
Oak-tah-vee-ah-noose
Ow-goose-toose
Weh-ee, wee-dee, wee-kee
Ah-bay-oss core-poose
Row=mah
Ray-duke-tee-oh ahd ahb-sur-doom
Eht ket-ehr-ah


Though not exactly. Basically they were pronounced as if they were Spanish with always hard 'g's and 'c's, and 'v's pronounced like 'w's. I honestly don't remember if any of them taught with rolled 'r's; I used them but basically no one else did because I'd learned Spanish early on and Romance pronunciation is more natural to me than English.

(I honestly can't tell for sure if either of your pronunciations match mine because of the ambiguity of the alphabet in English. All the syllables there are pronounced like the closest English syllable except 'sur', which doesn't really exist in English. 'Soor' comes close, I suppose.)

Incidentally, I wouldn't recommend using this pronunciation for binomial nomenclature. You'll just confuse the biologists who weren't conned into thinking that learning Latin would help them remember anatomical names.

[ManicOppressive]

I mispronounced "tarrasque" until just a few years ago, as did many people I've known. It's supposed to be two syllables, "tar-ask" (he's French), but a lot of folks say it with three, "tear-a-skay"

I went for years pronouncing it "Tear-uh-skew" because no one ever corrected me. So now that's what I call it, and no one can tell me otherwise.

[Zombulian]

I have a lisp. No word with an 's' sound is safe from me.

I always thought it was horribly cruel that the word for the condition also serves as a demonstration of the condition. Though I suppose it's efficient.


I mispronounced "tarrasque" until just a few years ago, as did many people I've known. It's supposed to be two syllables, "tar-ask" (he's French), but a lot of folks say it with three, "tear-a-skay"

A friend of mine pronounces it "tear-es-cue". I hated that pronunciation more than anything because it sounds so silly but the monster is supposed to be intimidating and eternal.


I pronounce it with a Q, but two syllables.

What. How does that work.


Inspired by some of the posts in the terrible player thread I thought we need one for the most mispronounced words.

One of the ones that bugged me the most was a DM that would say (me-lee) instead of (may-lay) even when everyone else said it correctly.

A guy I used to play with always pronounced it "muh-lay" and I wasn't really sure where he got it. There is no point in english where "me" makes a "muh" sound. I understand mee-lee.

Also this isn't D&D specific but a good friend of mine can't pronounce words that end in "ng". So "long" is pronounced "lawn" and "tongue" is pronounced "ton".

[goto124]

How is wyrm pronounced anyway? Why-erm? I had a friend who called it 'worm', so...

[Cirrylius]

Tiefling: Teef-ling. But I was pronouncing it tie-fling, as in the word tie.


It still pisses me off that despite reading Planescape since the first boxed edition in the 90's, for years I mispronounced Tiefling because I never noticed that it was -ie and not -ei :smallmad:

[zeifly]

Not sure if this has been mentioned yet, but there was one session we had where nobody could pronounce "Short Sword" correctly. I'm not sure why, but every single time someone would attempt to say it, they would get all tangled up and say "Shor Shord" Now it's become a kind of inside joke for our group

[atemu1234]

What. How does that work.

Think tear-ask, but with a "que" sound at the end instead of a K.

[Zombulian]

Think tear-ask, but with a "que" sound at the end instead of a K.

I'm trying so hard to understand but I'm failing to see how you can change it without adding a syllable.

[Magma Armor0]

Incidentally, I wouldn't recommend using this pronunciation for binomial nomenclature. You'll just confuse the biologists who weren't conned into thinking that learning Latin would help them remember anatomical names.

As a Latin teacher, I say rub it in their noses. 'Tis more fun that way.

And I've actually not seen ai="AY" before for Latin...I've usually seen the ei="AY" diphthong.

I'd also like to say that as a Latin teacher, I love that this thread has taken this wonderful turn. Can I justify going on GitP while I'm working now? ;)

[Svata]

How is wyrm pronounced anyway? Why-erm? I had a friend who called it 'worm', so...

Usually, just to distinguish between them, I add a touch of an 'h' to it, pronouncing it 'hwûrm', the 'hw' being deceptive and referring to a 'wh' combination, such as 'when' or 'where'.

[DrMotives]

How is wyrm pronounced anyway? Why-erm? I had a friend who called it 'worm', so...

Your friend is correct, although it makes it confusing to tell purple worms apart from purple wyrms.

[NNescio]

Your friend is correct, although it makes it confusing to tell purple worms apart from purple wyrms.

My dictionary lists it as /wyrm/ (funnily enough, the IPA has exactly the same spelling). The [y] sound is the same as the u umlaut in "über", or the "u" in French (when it occurs without a preceding o, as in "ou").

The [r] here indicates a trilled r, like the double rr found in Italian and Spanish.

(If I have to type the pronunciation out without using IPA... maybe "wuerrm"?)

Worm has the pronunciation indicated as /wɜːm/ for BrE (RP), so the vowel is different, and r is absent (it insteads extends the vowel's length, like what 'r' does in most non-rhotic accents "pahk the cah in Hahvuhd Yahd".)

Pronunciation under NA English (General American) is indicated as /wɝm/. The 'r' is sort of there, but incorporated into the vowel (as indicated by the tiny inverted r), as is the case with some rhotic accents.

(For those who are not familiar with rhotic/nonrhotic accents but are familiar with Mandarin Chinese, it's [rhotacized vowel] basically the erhua phenomenon exemplified by speakers from Beijing.)

I usually pronounce worm as /wɜːm/ and wyrm as /wyːm/. I have problems pronouncing trilled 'r's.

[A_S]

I don't... What's wrong with theurge? A few of these "I can't believe y'all mispronounce [obscure word]!" Don't explain why. XD
It's pronounced [ˈθiˌɚʤ] (THEE-urge, two syllables, with the voiceless "th" like in "theory," not the voiced one in "the"). Given the title of the handbook, I think the author (like many people) pronounces it as [θɝʤ] (THURGE, one syllable, rhymes with "urge").

*edit*
/wyːm/
To my rhotic ears, this sounds like a funny mispronunciation of the word "womb."

[georgie_leech]

It's pronounced [ˈθiˌɚʤ] (THEE-urge, two syllables, with the voiceless "th" like in "theory," not the voiced one in "the"). Given the title of the handbook, I think the author (like many people) pronounces it as [θɝʤ] (THURGE, one syllable, rhymes with "urge").



The Urge to Theurge rhymes using the correct pronunciation as well; both end up with -EE-urge, with only a slight difference between the TH-'s between the two. Assuming you use the THEE version of "the" and not the "THUH" one, that is. THEE URGE to THEE-urge, as it were.

[A_S]

The Urge to Theurge rhymes using the correct pronunciation as well; both end up with -EE-urge, with only a slight difference between the TH-'s between the two. Assuming you use the THEE version of "the" and not the "THUH" one, that is. THEE URGE to THEE-urge, as it were.
Sorry if I was unclear; I wasn't guessing that the handbook used the wrong "th" sound, but that it used the one-syllable version (as a pun on phrases like "the urge to merge"). It does sorta rhyme with the correct pronunciation, but doesn't sound as cool.

[Kurald Galain]

The one I hear most often is psionic / psychic (that P is silent, people!)

Pronouncing Avatar as ah-VAY-tar, although that was before that movie came out.

And then there are some tribes or auspices from Werewolf that everyone pronounces differently, such as Uktena (is the K silent or not?) and Metis (MEH-tis is probably wrong since it's a French loanword). This includes Theurge, because theurges are slightly more common in WTA than in D&D.

And yes, we've had a long-term druid player who pronounces Shillelagh with a guttural German GGGGG at the end...

And then there's the incident with Psychic Venom (a MtG card), which one player called FAY-sic VEE-nom...

If players pronounce it "Escheron" instead of "Acheron", they should be prepared to be stranded on a plane made up entirely of staircases with malfunctioning subjective gravity.
Win!

[OracleofWuffing]

Lich.

I'm fully convinced that anytime someone says it, there will be someone else in the room who pronounces it the other way and has some evidence to back its etymology, but the moment someone starts to say it that way, that first scholar has left the room and now there's a new guy who wants me to pronounce it another way, also explaining its etymology.

[georgie_leech]

The one I hear most often is psionic / psychic (that P is silent, people!)

Pronouncing Avatar as ah-VAY-tar, although that was before that movie came out.

And then there are some tribes or auspices from Werewolf that everyone pronounces differently, such as Uktena (is the K silent or not?) and Metis (MEH-tis is probably wrong since it's a French loanword). This includes Theurge, because theurges are slightly more common in WTA than in D&D.


Win!

If it's anything like the Canadian word, Metis is pronounced MAY-TEE; like a pirate "matey," but with emphasis on both syllables.

[Eldan]

That's canonical. It's supposed to be that way, but nobody seems to care. XD

What I wanna know is, does the feminine -ix come from or sound like or just happen to be superficially similar to the feminine -ess?

Wiki says that -ess is from the Greek -issa, actually. Which is strange, since English mostly seems to stick it on Latin-derived words (actress, sorceress).

[Andezzar]

And then there are some tribes or auspices from Werewolf that everyone pronounces differently, such as Uktena (is the K silent or not?) and Metis (MEH-tis is probably wrong since it's a French loanword). This includes Theurge, because theurges are slightly more common in WTA than in D&D.Most of the games from White Wolf are great for that kind of stuff. I bet there has never been a consensus on how to pronounce Tzimisce.
The normal name for the Patrician clan would not be pronounced Venn-Troo, if you know some French. On top of that it is a funny sobriquet, if you know the French meaning.

Metis is interesting, if it is meant to be loaned from the French métis. In the game it describes the opposite of what it means in French. Métis is a person of mixed heritage wheras the garou term metis is the genrally despised and often killed offspring of two werewolves. The norm is actually mixed heritage of one human and one werewolf parent.

[Jeff the Green]

As a Latin teacher, I say rub it in their noses. 'Tis more fun that way.

Oh, sure. But once you get out of the common ones like Homo sapiens and start talking about Weebreeoh Keekleetropheecoose (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vibrio_cy****rophicus) bacteria you tend to lose people.


And I've actually not seen ai="AY" before for Latin...I've usually seen the ei="AY" diphthong.

Typo, or possibly editing error. I meant, I think, 'Guy-oose' for Gaius, or possibly forgot to change the 'a' when I realized halfway through that some people wouldn't get it if I used the Spanish pronunciation.


It's pronounced [ˈθiˌɚʤ] (THEE-urge, two syllables, with the voiceless "th" like in "theory," not the voiced one in "the"). Given the title of the handbook, I think the author (like many people) pronounces it as [θɝʤ] (THURGE, one syllable, rhymes with "urge").

In most dialects of English, at least, a short 'i' followed by a schwa will be treated as a dipthong similar to "thyurge". It's very hard to pronounce them as strictly separate syllables without introducing a glottal stop.

[Eldan]

After several pages, I am incredibly surprised that no one has brought up Shillelagh.

Another Gaelic word like Geas (gesh), so almost entirely not as you'd expect: I think it's about Shi-ley-lee.


Anyway, I prounce Latin as Latin. Especially in biology. I don't care what you want to call your bacteria, I call mine properly.


Also, Lich is clearly derived from the German and especially Swiss German word for "corpse", so there's neither a "t" nor a "sh" in there.

[BWR]

Also, Lich is clearly derived from the German and especially Swiss German word for "corpse", so there's neither a "t" nor a "sh" in there.

'Lich' is an older English word, a cogante of German and Scandinavian words, not derived from, so 'tch' is correct.

[RedMage125]

They were pronouncing it either correctly, or almost correctly, anyway. The proper pronunciation is "bull-ET."

The pronunciation in the Monster Manual is wrong.

Lolwut? D&D is fantasy, how can you say that the books are wrong. Bulette is one of the few exampes that I have ever seen a pronounciation guide IN the Monster Manual (I think it was the only one in the 2e MM), and you want to claim that the source book of the fantasy setting about an imaginary creature...is wrong while you are right?

I can't take that one seriously.


However, to everyone else, I'm seeing a lot of people discusss words in the link, so here it is again, correct pronounciation:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?151-D-D-Pronunciation-Guide#.VLFE4SvF-np

[Rogue Shadows]

Most of the games from White Wolf are great for that kind of stuff. I bet there has never been a consensus on how to pronounce Tzimisce.

It's "zhi-mee-see." A pronounceation guide is provided in the Vampire Revised core rulebook, and it's also the pronunciation used in Vampire: the Masquerade - Redemption and Vampire: the Masquerade - Bloodlines.


'Lich' is an older English word, a cogante of German and Scandinavian words, not derived from, so 'tch' is correct.

Agreed; lich has been part of the English language for as long as there has been an English language.

[SimonMoon6]

I mispronounced "tarrasque" until just a few years ago, as did many people I've known. It's supposed to be two syllables, "tar-ask" (he's French), but a lot of folks say it with three, "tear-a-skay"

I knew people who would call the tarrasque "tear a skew". I thought about taking them to an antique store someday and seeing if they pronounced it as "anti queue" or something.

I also knew someone who refused to pronounce Blibdoolpoolp's name correctly, calling her instead "Blib dee bloo".

I'm also not sure how "sahuagin" is supposed to be pronounced. Most of us pronounced it "saw Hugh again" but I later decided that was probably wrong. I decided to have the members of the race themselves pronounce it "sah hwah gheen" just to be different.


Most people pronounce chimera with a hard K sound at the start, but Cerberus I usually hear as Serberus. The Greeks said that name with a hard K sound as well, but frankly Care-bear-us doesn't sound so frightening as Serberus, so I usually say that one wrong.

That's okay. The Greeks pronounce many Greek words differently than we do. The pronunciation for Zeus would not be "Zoos" but more like "Zay-oos" and so forth. So, don't sweat that one; English pronunciations of foreign words may have little to do with the actual foreign pronunciations of the same words.

Not quite on topic but similar: when I was a kid reading Wonder Woman comics, I was introduced to a character named Hippolyte (she wasn't called Hippolyta with an "a" until much later). So, how would I pronounce that? Well, I called her (in my head) "Hippo light-ee" (almost like Jerry Lewis trying to say Hippo Lady). After all, I knew how to prounce the word "hippo", so all I wondered about was what about the second half of the name? It wasn't until much later than I learned a more correct pronunciation (with accent on the second syllable). And even decades later, sometimes when I'm not thinking, I may default to my incorrect pronunciation.

[Kurald Galain]

I knew people who would call the tarrasque "tear a skew". I thought about taking them to an antique store someday and seeing if they pronounced it as "anti queue" or something.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2GaoBeeLS4


I decided to have the members of the race themselves pronounce it "sah hwah gheen" just to be different.
That's how we always pronounced it, actually :smallcool:

[RedMage125]

The original D&D pronunciation guide put out decades ago indeed has it at "sah-HWAH-gin"

[P.F.]

Lolwut? D&D is fantasy, how can you say that the books are wrong. Bulette is one of the few exampes that I have ever seen a pronounciation guide IN the Monster Manual (I think it was the only one in the 2e MM), and you want to claim that the source book of the fantasy setting about an imaginary creature...is wrong while you are right?

I can't take that one seriously.


However, to everyone else, I'm seeing a lot of people discusss words in the link, so here it is again, correct pronounciation:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?151-D-D-Pronunciation-Guide#.VLFE4SvF-np

Seriously or otherwise, bulette is "buh-LET." The Monster Manual is wrong.

Also, some of the pronunciations in that link are also wrong, or at least, not universal. Blackguard is pronounced "blaggard" if it is used as a disparaging and offensive epithet, or if you are Brittish. For Americans referring to an actual Blackguard, I maintain that the proper pronunciation is "Black Guard," both syllables accented. I have no idea how Australians or Nigerians or other Anglospheric peoples might pronounce it.

They list guisarme as "gwee-ZARM" which doesn't match the pronunciation listed in either dictionary in my house, although I confess to not owning the unabridged OED. It lists the emphasis of "tenebrous" as being on the wrong syllable. I haven't gone through the entire list but I would be surprised if there are not other errors.

However, that pronunciation guide can't be all bad as it does list Bulette as "boo-LET." It includes the other as an alternate pronunciation. My granddad said that a man could call himself "Mr. Brown" and spell it G-R-E-E-N, so I guess any individual bullet can call itself "Mssr. Byoo-LAY," if he so chooses.

[Jormengand]

Before reading this thread, I'd never have imagined that there was a way to pronounce blackguard other than blackguard.

[Agent 451]

I think it's about Shi-ley-lee.

That's how I've always pronounced it, although I've heard it pronounced several other ways, like Sha-lay-log and sha-la-la.

Sidhe is another one. Correct pronunciation is akin to shee, however I've heard it spoken it as something close to city, with the "t" being replaced with a "d". And I'm sure I probably also pronounced it that way until I was corrected.

[lsfreak]

My dictionary lists it as /wyrm/ (funnily enough, the IPA has exactly the same spelling). The [y] sound is the same as the u umlaut in "über", or the "u" in French (when it occurs without a preceding o, as in "ou").

The [r] here indicates a trilled r, like the double rr found in Italian and Spanish.

(If I have to type the pronunciation out without using IPA... maybe "wuerrm"?)

Worm has the pronunciation indicated as /wɜːm/ for BrE (RP), so the vowel is different, and r is absent (it insteads extends the vowel's length, like what 'r' does in most non-rhotic accents "pahk the cah in Hahvuhd Yahd".)

Pronunciation under NA English (General American) is indicated as /wɝm/. The 'r' is sort of there, but incorporated into the vowel (as indicated by the tiny inverted r), as is the case with some rhotic accents.

(For those who are not familiar with rhotic/nonrhotic accents but are familiar with Mandarin Chinese, it's [rhotacized vowel] basically the erhua phenomenon exemplified by speakers from Beijing.)

I usually pronounce worm as /wɜːm/ and wyrm as /wyːm/. I have problems pronouncing trilled 'r's.

My understanding is that it's the Old English that's /wyrm/. That would become identical to <worm> due to regular sound change between Old English and Modern (unround the /y/, tense it to /ɪ/ for being short, merge it with /r/ to /ɜ~ɝ/). And in fact it did, <worm> is <wyrm> just with modern spelling. So in this instance, I think your careful pronunciation isn't necessary.

[A_S]

In most dialects of English, at least, a short 'i' followed by a schwa will be treated as a dipthong similar to "thyurge". It's very hard to pronounce them as strictly separate syllables without introducing a glottal stop.
I think that's only true if the stress is on the second syllable. I have no trouble as a native English speaker saying "THEE-urge" without a glottal stop, and if I attempt to pronounce it with a diphthong as "thyurge," I parse it as having stress on "urge." Furthermore, there are examples of this in real words of English that people don't mispronounce; for instance, I've always parsed the word "seer" as having two syllables (SEE-ur). I could also pronounce it as a single diphthong (syur) or drop the schwa entirely (seer, rhymes with "shear"), but if I heard somebody pronounce it that way I'd say they were mispronouncing the word. Do you pronounce/hear seer as a single syllable?

[Lathund]

According to one theory (http://community.wizards.com/forum/previous-editions-general/threads/2156786), the word aasimar is derived from the Arabic masculine proper name Aasim, which means "guardian" or "protector." This would suggest the pronunciation "AH-si-mar."

Assuming that the word is German or Dutch would suggest the same pronunciation, but I don't know what the word would mean then.

On the other hand, assuming that the name is Scandinavian would suggest that it should be pronounced "OH-si-mar" and might alternatively be spelled as Åsimar.

It's definitely not Dutch, I can assure you of that. Not likely to be German either. Still, I also pronounce that the Dutch/Arabic way.

[Invader]

Seriously or otherwise, bulette is "buh-LET." The Monster Manual is wrong.

However, that pronunciation guide can't be all bad as it does list Bulette as "boo-LET." It includes the other as an alternate pronunciation. My granddad said that a man could call himself "Mr. Brown" and spell it G-R-E-E-N, so I guess any individual bullet can call itself "Mssr. Byoo-LAY," if he so chooses.

The *two* references I looked at says its Boo-lay and I'll trust the creators of the game to judge how they wanted things pronounced.

I stand partially corrected. According to Frank Metzger in Dragon 93 it's pronounced "boo-let" "byoo-let" "boo-lay" or "byoo-lay". Players choice I guess.

All in all there's a ton of words with their pronunciations listed. It's a pretty good read and answers a few questions raised in this thread.

[Invader]

Before reading this thread, I'd never have imagined that there was a way to pronounce blackguard other than blackguard.

I'm with you on this one. In 15 years I've never heard it any other way than "black guard".

[Invader]

Drow is either Drow or Dro

Tarrasque is Ta-rask

Am I allowed to post a link to the dragon magazine with the info for everyone? It's really quite interesting.

[Tarvus]

Also, one pet peeve of mine, after seeing Rich misspell it repeatedly: it's Heucuva (http://www.lomion.de/cmm/heucuva.php), not "huecuva"! GAH! I guess my pronunciation actually makes misspelling things like these harder, because it would mean the difference between "he-oo-koo-vah" (the "e" pronounced as the "a" in "at") and "hoo-eh-koo-vah". I'll pronounce every vowel clearly.

Uhh what? My copy of Field Folio says its spelt Huecuva, as does the Pathfinder Bestiary, the wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huecuva), and the wiki page of the myth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wekufe) its based on.

[Jeff the Green]

I think that's only true if the stress is on the second syllable. I have no trouble as a native English speaker saying "THEE-urge" without a glottal stop, and if I attempt to pronounce it with a diphthong as "thyurge," I parse it as having stress on "urge." Furthermore, there are examples of this in real words of English that people don't mispronounce; for instance, I've always parsed the word "seer" as having two syllables (SEE-ur). I could also pronounce it as a single diphthong (syur) or drop the schwa entirely (seer, rhymes with "shear"), but if I heard somebody pronounce it that way I'd say they were mispronouncing the word. Do you pronounce/hear seer as a single syllable?

Yes, as a dipthong, though admittedly at the more separate end of the spectrum. (For reference, my accent, and that of just about everyone I've heard use the word, is thoroughly Pacific Northwestern—essentially the "standard" American accent you hear from news anchors due to the influence of California.) Actually, "shear" is a dipthong too; you physically can't go from 'ee' to 'r' without going through a schwa first.

[Jeraa]

Uhh what? My copy of Field Folio says its spelt Huecuva, as does the Pathfinder Bestiary, the wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huecuva), and the wiki page the myth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wekufe) its based on.

1st edition AD&D spelled it Huecuva. 2nd edition AD&D (which his linked page is from) spelled it Heucuva. 3rd edition reverted back to Huecuva, which seems to be the correct way to spell it.

[goto124]

My understanding is that it's the Old English that's /wyrm/. That would become identical to <worm> due to regular sound change between Old English and Modern (unround the /y/, tense it to /ɪ/ for being short, merge it with /r/ to /ɜ~ɝ/). And in fact it did, <worm> is <wyrm> just with modern spelling. So in this instance, I think your careful pronunciation isn't necessary.

Still, I'll pronounce wyrm incorrectly just to avoid confusion.

'WORMS DON'T FLY!'

[tomandtish]

In a game I played in many years ago (late 80s) we were sneaking into a temple.Upon entering a room...

DM: "You see three Acotiles".

Us: "What?"

DM: "Acotiles".

Us: "Uh, OK. What do they look like?"

DM: "Like you'd expect. Wearing the black robes of the cult. They appear to have been preparing the altar".

Me: "Umm, do you mean Acolytes?"

Long pause....

DM: "Is that how you say that?"

Queue 20 minutes for laughter.

We still enjoy talking abut the fierce battle we had with the Acotiles.

(Now that the story is done, yes I spelled his word how he was saying it).

[A_S]

Yes, as a dipthong, though admittedly at the more separate end of the spectrum. (For reference, my accent, and that of just about everyone I've heard use the word, is thoroughly Pacific Northwestern—essentially the "standard" American accent you hear from news anchors due to the influence of California.) Actually, "shear" is a dipthong too; you physically can't go from 'ee' to 'r' without going through a schwa first.
Hm...so, my accent is also pretty core SAE, and I parse the word "seer" as two syllables, while "shear" is one. Yes, your mouth is forced to go through schwa territory in order to enunciate the 'r' at the end of "shear," but it's a brief diphthongization of the vowel, whereas "seer" has a distinct, second vowel.

As a matter of fact, I can even come up with a minimal contrast pair for this distinction: "Peer" (equal, classmate) is one syllable, while "pee-er" (one who pees, not exactly a high-frequency word, but a reasonable neologism) is two syllables, and I pronounce them differently. I think I maybe add a palatal approximant [j] to avoid vowel hiatus to distinguish the two syllables in the second one? Or maybe just lengthen the [i]? It's sort of hard for me to figure out exactly what I'm doing that makes them sound different, but they're definitely not the same.

[sreservoir]

Hm...so, my accent is also pretty core SAE, and I parse the word "seer" as two syllables, while "shear" is one. Yes, your mouth is forced to go through schwa territory in order to enunciate the 'r' at the end of "shear," but it's a brief diphthongization of the vowel, whereas "seer" has a distinct, second vowel.

As a matter of fact, I can even come up with a minimal contrast pair for this distinction: "Peer" (equal, classmate) is one syllable, while "pee-er" (one who pees, not exactly a high-frequency word, but a reasonable neologism) is two syllables, and I pronounce them differently. I think I maybe add a palatal approximant [j] to avoid vowel hiatus to distinguish the two syllables in the second one? Or maybe just lengthen the [i]? It's sort of hard for me to figure out exactly what I'm doing that makes them sound different, but they're definitely not the same.

I say this because english syllabification is very wonky and, e.g. for many people "girl" and "squirrel" rhyme but are considered to have different syllable counts; I would consider "sear" and "seer" homophonous but the first is one-syllable and the second is two-syllable. in isolation they are tonally distinct for me, but the distinction is not salient generally. [though, as a side note, "the seer" and "to sear" are also homophones for me when "the"/"to" is unstressed because they both reduce to aspirated t. in this context the tonal distinction between the two also seems to disappear.]

possible test: record yourself each word in a pair, preferably multiple times without discernibly distinct in context, including e.g. saying the word between randomly chosen words. label them. then, shuffle them and see if you can distinguish them at better than chance. I ... don't think it's likely (real vowel length contrast [as opposed to weird diphthongisation] isn't a common feature of american englishes), though it's not inconceivable.

because english syllabification is really really wonky, and depends on more than just the phonology involved, including etymology and convention—well, basically the notion of syllables is mostly conventional and in fact often fairly arbitrary given that at least most varieties of modern english aren't especially syllable-timed.

[A_S]

I say this because english syllabification is very wonky and, e.g. for many people "girl" and "squirrel" rhyme but are considered to have different syllable counts; I would consider "sear" and "seer" homophonous but the first is one-syllable and the second is two-syllable. in isolation they are tonally distinct for me, but the distinction is not salient generally. [though, as a side note, "the seer" and "to sear" are also homophones for me when "the"/"to" is unstressed because they both reduce to aspirated t. in this context the tonal distinction between the two also seems to disappear.]

possible test: record yourself each word in a pair, preferably multiple times without discernibly distinct in context, including e.g. saying the word between randomly chosen words. label them. then, shuffle them and see if you can distinguish them at better than chance. I ... don't think it's likely (real vowel length contrast [as opposed to weird diphthongisation] isn't a common feature of american englishes), though it's not inconceivable.

because english syllabification is really really wonky, and depends on more than just the phonology involved, including etymology and convention—well, basically the notion of syllables is mostly conventional and in fact often fairly arbitrary given that at least most varieties of modern english aren't especially syllable-timed.
A. Your test is a good idea.

B. I can't believe I forgot "sear" was a word when trying to come up with a minimal contrast pair :P .

[lsfreak]

The morpheme boundary present in seer, but not in sear, might mess things up. Doing a quick little test, I can tell a difference between "The seer's gunna..." and "The sear's gunna..." The first is [si.ɻ] and the second [sɪɻ] (not quite cardinal /ɪ/, same vowel as mirror). But then, there's the ever-present problem that people pronounce things more carefully when they know their speech is being recorded/analyzed, and none so much as when you're the one analyzing.

[Andezzar]

B. I can't believe I forgot "sear" was a word when trying to come up with a minimal contrast pair :P .There's also sere.

[goto124]

So glad that context helps in telling the difference between seer and sear. Helps that one's a noun and other's a verb.

[SirKazum]

1st edition AD&D spelled it Huecuva. 2nd edition AD&D (which his linked page is from) spelled it Heucuva. 3rd edition reverted back to Huecuva, which seems to be the correct way to spell it.

Well I'll be damned. The only place I knew that creature from was the 2E MM, which apparently is the only place that got it wrong. Dang. My apologies :smallbiggrin:

And I don't specifically know the name Aasim, but knowing a little bit of Arabic, in words that have two A's like that, one of them (probably the first one in this case) is actually ayin, a consonant that's a sort of a contraction of the throat. So that makes for an interesting way to pronounce Aasimar. It's hard to explain though, as nothing remotely like this sound exists in English.

[Fitz10019]

Prestidigitation

Where's the problem? Sleight of hand
It's press-tea-digit-ation (http://media.merriam-webster.com/soundc11/p/presti01.wav) by the way. Or just call it by what it means: quick finger action
Did you listen to your own link? That link says 'press tih dij ih tay shun' -- no long e as in tea or tee
The three first 'i's get the same pronunciation, as a short i, note: prɛstɪˌdɪdʒɪˈteɪʃ(ə)n
Now you've mislead this guy...

Huh. I mispronounced some things... I did a short i for the first i in prestidigitation.
That's correct, danzibr; use short i.

ü - u with two dots
Regarding ü, using 'ue' is an alternate spelling for those who don't have a u-umlaut on their keyboard. It's not meant as a pronunciation guide. The riding e is used an alternate spelling of all of these: ä ö ü.

[Togath]

I mispronounced "tarrasque" until just a few years ago, as did many people I've known. It's supposed to be two syllables, "tar-ask" (he's French), but a lot of folks say it with three, "tear-a-skay"

I'd always thought it was ta-ra-skew

[Hiro Quester]

Once played with a DM who consistently pronounced the party cleric's deity as "Bobco" instead of Boccob (even after being reminded).

But it was rarely in the mouth of a PC (that I recall). More like "Your god Bobco would approve of that decision", or "You decided to go back to the temple of Bobco to consult the high priestess". So the player never got to accuse the speaker of blasphemy or anything.

I think it was amusingly frustrating, or frustratingly amusing, for the player.

[Eldan]

I'd always thought it was ta-ra-skew

It is a monster of French legend, so it really should be pronounced as a French word, IMO.

[SirKazum]

Once played with a DM who consistently pronounced the party cleric's deity as "Bobco" instead of Boccob (even after being reminded).

But it was rarely in the mouth of a PC (that I recall). More like "Your god Bobco would approve of that decision", or "You decided to go back to the temple of Bobco to consult the high priestess". So the player never got to accuse the speaker of blasphemy or anything.

I think it was amusingly frustrating, or frustratingly amusing, for the player.

That cleric should totally refluff "Bobco" into a cult-like company and himself as a sales rep. "BobCo, for all your spellcasting needs!"

[Pex]

One player in my group pronounces aasimar as "azmir" and Bahamut as "Bohmut". A bit annoying, but in a fun way. when he's the DM of the campaign for which it matters, as I'm playing an azmir Paladin of Bohmut.

Another player pronounces lich as "lik". I've always pronounced the ch as in "church". I've been hearing it that way since 2E, and I will continue to pronounce it that way no matter how often he emphasizes the K.

Side trek:

It is would have, should have, could have or would've, should've, could've.

It is NOT would of, should of, could of.

That just grates me to no end.

[Jeff the Green]

It is a monster of French legend, so it really should be pronounced as a French word, IMO.

Or even just as every other English word (http://www.scrabblefinder.com/ends-with/que/) ending in -que does (except the ones that would normally have an accent over the e, like risqué or appliqué).

[Kriton]

Most people pronounce chimera with a hard K sound at the start, but Cerberus I usually hear as Serberus. The Greeks said that name with a hard K sound as well, but frankly Care-bear-us doesn't sound so frightening as Serberus, so I usually say that one wrong.

These are pronounced quite differently in greek actually. Cerberus is pronounced KER-ve-ros and Chimera is pronounced as HEE-me-ra(the hee as in hero), that being said in english you might be using the latin roots for these words that could possibly work differently from greek, so it's not very clear to me if you are mispronouncing them or not.

EDIT:

Minotaur is an English word, for which min-uh-tawr is an accepted pronunciation.

You're probably thinking of the Latin root word, Minotaurus, or the Ancient Greek Μῑνώταυρος. The Greek pronunciation would, I believe, be "mee-noe-taoo-dose".

The greek pronunciation is closer to mee-NO-tav-ros.

EDIT2:


That's okay. The Greeks pronounce many Greek words differently than we do. The pronunciation for Zeus would not be "Zoos" but more like "Zay-oos" and so forth. So, don't sweat that one; English pronunciations of foreign words may have little to do with the actual foreign pronunciations of the same words.

Not quite on topic but similar: when I was a kid reading Wonder Woman comics, I was introduced to a character named Hippolyte (she wasn't called Hippolyta with an "a" until much later). So, how would I pronounce that? Well, I called her (in my head) "Hippo light-ee" (almost like Jerry Lewis trying to say Hippo Lady). After all, I knew how to prounce the word "hippo", so all I wondered about was what about the second half of the name? It wasn't until much later than I learned a more correct pronunciation (with accent on the second syllable). And even decades later, sometimes when I'm not thinking, I may default to my incorrect pronunciation.

Zeus in greek would be pronounced as ZEFS and you were really close with Hippolyte its pronounced ee-po-LEE-tee.

[Kurald Galain]

These are pronounced quite differently in greek actually. Cerberus is pronounced KER-ve-ros and Chimera is pronounced as HEE-me-ra(the hee as in hero), that being said in english you might be using the latin roots for these words that could possibly work differently from greek, so it's not very clear to me if you are mispronouncing them or not.

No, DrMotives is correct: Chimera has a hard K both in Greek and in Latin.

[Kriton]

No, DrMotives is correct: Chimera has a hard K both in Greek and in Latin.

Greek is my native language, so I think I know what I am talking about.

[Hecuba]

Greek is my native language, so I think I know what I am talking about.

Butting my head in where it's not been invited:

Kriton is unambiguously correct with regards to Modern Greek. The two dialects of which I am aware that do not follow that rule are Tsakonian (Τσακωνικά) and Italiot (Κατωιταλιώτικα): collectively, they have only a couple hundred speakers.

If we're discussing Classical dialects, then both are /k/ sounds- but not the same /k/ sound.
Κ (Kappa) is an unasperated /k/, like the "c" in "cool" for English.

In Doric and other Western group ancient dialects Χ (chi) is /ks/. This is similar to the "x" in "Axe" for English.

For Attic and other Central and Eastern group ancient dialects Χ (chi) is /kh/. This is somewhat unintuitive to translate to English, as it makes an asperate distinction we do not normally consider in English. Examples in English would be "Kyle" of "Cain." You'll have to listen closely, but if you follow a K (or hard C) with an H, long A, or long I you will generally hear an asperation -effectively a very short implied H.

[Invader]

That cleric should totally refluff "Bobco" into a cult-like company and himself as a sales rep. "BobCo, for all your spellcasting needs!"

I think that's who Billy Mays worshipped :smallamused:

[Zombulian]

Side trek:

It is would have, should have, could have or would've, should've, could've.

It is NOT would of, should of, could of.

That just grates me to no end.

THANK YOU. So many people make that mistake and it bothers me so much.

[Fiery Diamond]

Mei-gus. Rhymes with Vegas. The clue is that "magi," the plural which everyone is familiar with because of the jesus thing, has the same starting syllable.

The problem with this is that I know exactly zero people who pronounce "magi" as anything other than "Maj eye" with "maj" as in "magic." Soooooo the clue leads to the wrong answer.

[PeekingPenguin]

Might have come up but how does one pronounce dorje, the psionic wand. In my group we tend to pronounce it "door jeh" or "ar jeh"

[goto124]

The problem with this is that I know exactly zero people who pronounce "magi" as anything other than "Maj eye" with "maj" as in "magic." Soooooo the clue leads to the wrong answer.

Maj in magic? I pronounce magic as meh-jig...

And magi as may-jai.

[sreservoir]

Prestidigitation

Did you listen to your own link? That link says 'press tih dij ih tay shun' -- no long e as in tea or tee
The three first 'i's get the same pronunciation, as a short i, note: prɛstɪˌdɪdʒɪˈteɪʃ(ə)n
Now you've mislead this guy...

That's correct, danzibr; use short i.

motion to stop talking about "short" and "long" vowels in english because seriously????? english phonics pedagogy?? confusion?????? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vowel_length#Traditional_long_and_short_vowels_in_ English_orthography)

while we're at it, pronunciation respelling considered harmful (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pronunciation_respelling_for_English) given that they're barely helpful between dialects of english, and the only appropriate response to such a thing when applied as pronunciation guides for foreign borrowings is shock and horror.

[quote=Fiery Diamond]The problem with this is that I know exactly zero people who pronounce "magi" as anything other than "Maj eye" with "maj" as in "magic." Soooooo the clue leads to the wrong answer.[/url]

the important thing about english phonology is that it is a horrific eldritch abomination (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_phonology) and that the way it is usually taught is only marginally less horrific and slightly more abominable since they only usually treat of one accent at a time.

[Fiery Diamond]

Maj in magic? I pronounce magic as meh-jig...

And magi as may-jai.

That's an odd (as in, completely alien to me) pronunciation of magic. Magic (for me) is "ma" (as in sad) "j" (like in jog) "ick" (like in sick). Two syllables. If you pronounced it like you say in front of me, I wouldn't even have the slightest idea that you were saying "magic," I'd think you were saying a foreign or made-up word.

[Zombulian]

Maj in magic? I pronounce magic as meh-jig...

And magi as may-jai.

I have never heard someone pronounce Magic in that way.

[Jeff the Green]

Might have come up but how does one pronounce dorje, the psionic wand. In my group we tend to pronounce it "door jeh" or "ar jeh"

The first one, or possibly something like "door jay".

[atemu1234]

The first one, or possibly something like "door jay".

I pronounce it "door-hee" for simplicity.

[Jeff the Green]

I pronounce it "door-hee" for simplicity.

:smallconfused: How is that simpler?

[Jeraa]

"Door-jay" is the closest to the actual pronunciation. Or "door-juh". "Door-hee" or "door-hey" are incorrect.

[sreservoir]

"Door-jay" is the closest to the actual pronunciation. Or "door-juh". "Door-hee" or "door-hey" are incorrect.

actual pronunciation of what (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vajra)?

[Jeff the Green]

actual pronunciation of what (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vajra)?

"Dorje" is Tibetan. "Vajra" is Sanskrit. Same concept; different languages, like "dog" and "perro" or "cat" and "chat".

[Drelua]

There's one example from PFS last year that really bugged me; Jormurdun. Everyone I knew was pronouncing it Jor-mun-dun, starting with j as in jog. It's actually pretty easy if you go with an exaggerated swedish chef voice; your-moor-dune. I'm not actually 100% sure on that last syllable, but I think it should be more dune, as in sand, than dun, as in dramatic onomatopoeia, with a partial stop right after the 'r'.

Another example is my first DM pronouncing Phylactery as fie-la-si-tree. Fie as in fire without the r, as it should be, then... I don't know what happened. Oh, and I used to say as-meer for Aasimar, I have don't know what happened there either. Never had any trouble with tiefling though; I just assumed it was like thief, 'cause that's what tieflings are. :smallbiggrin:

[Malimar]

Might have come up but how does one pronounce dorje, the psionic wand. In my group we tend to pronounce it "door jeh" or "ar jeh"

In my mouth, it rhymes with "George".

[sreservoir]

"Dorje" is Tibetan. "Vajra" is Sanskrit. Same concept; different languages, like "dog" and "perro" or "cat" and "chat".

slightly similar to the situation with cat/chat, sure, but not quite with dog/perro; but of the other names listed on the page, afaict the tibetan form is in fact a transliteration, as are the tamil, bengali, malay, and indonesian; the CJK are all 金剛杵 (well, the chinese is clipped); I don't know what's going on in mongolian, but I'd wager at least Базар is also a transliteration.

all of those languages except indonesian are also non-latin and have multiple transliteration schemes, and tbh most of those transliteration schemes make 68x more sense to a linguist familiar with the language than to an anglophone trying to read any particular word.

the form which appears to be རྡོ་རྗེ། (but I can't, uh, read tibetan). a brief search suggests that of more popular tibetan romanisation systems, there is one which notoriously makes sense only if familiar with tibetan linguistics, and one with phonemic but not necessarily phonetic (well, it's hard to do phonetically accurate transcription into the latin alphabet) correspondence and anyway someone apparently didn't finish writing the wikipedia article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibetan_pinyin#Coda_variation) at which point I decided I wasn't that invested in figuring out exactly how it's supposed to be pronounced.

it'd be more the equivalent of, say, transliterating a greek-derived name of a russian, phonetically, into japanese. (this is not really the greatest example but hey, I have an actual example of ロジオン（ロマーヌイチ・ラスコーリニコフ） ... french to russian to japanese might be easier to find examples for.) how do we assess "correct" of a pronunciation which is clearly borrowed anyway; I mean, e.g. "karaoke" wouldn't really be recognizable as a descendant of カラオケ, but the horrendously mangled form is the only one recognizable to probably more anglophones than would recognize the japanese-emulating form. what can we even say about a transliterated word that has approximately no usage in english?? [and now I have a better example: karate, borrowed from okinawan into japanese and then into english as kəˈɹɑːti.]

I don't know what would be a reasonable choice of how to assign the pronunciation either, especially taking into account sound changes within a "language", so, like, on what grounds is something close to what actual pronunciation of what

[Flickerdart]

I don't know what's going on in mongolian, but I'd wager at least Базар is also a transliteration.
Nope. Pronounced like "bazaar."

[lsfreak]

On Greek, yes, it's very important to distinguish modern from ancient pronunciation. Modern Greek pronounces ph/th/kh and b/d/g rather differently than ancient Greek. In English our pronunciation of ph/th is close to modern Greek, but b/d/g/ch (always hard) is close to Ancient.


If we're discussing Classical dialects, then both are /k/ sounds- but not the same /k/ sound.
Κ (Kappa) is an unasperated /k/, like the "c" in "cool" for English.

For Attic and other Central and Eastern group ancient dialects Χ (chi) is /kh/. This is somewhat unintuitive to translate to English, as it makes an asperate distinction we do not normally consider in English. Examples in English would be "Kyle" of "Cain." You'll have to listen closely, but if you follow a K (or hard C) with an H, long A, or long I you will generally hear an asperation -effectively a very short implied H.

I'm not sure you're drawing the distinction correctly. English (Native British/American, at least) /p t k/ are aspirated quite strongly word-initially, including "cool," and are a good match for Ancient Greek φ θ χ. But English is a mess of aspiration, voicing, vowel length, and glottalization; medial rather than initial English /p t k/ are often close matches for Greek (ancient or modern) π τ κ, while initial /b d g/ aren't far off.


the form which appears to be རྡོ་རྗེ། (but I can't, uh, read tibetan). a brief search suggests that of more popular tibetan romanisation systems, there is one which notoriously makes sense only if familiar with tibetan linguistics, and one with phonemic but not necessarily phonetic (well, it's hard to do phonetically accurate transcription into the latin alphabet) correspondence and anyway someone apparently didn't finish writing the wikipedia article at which point I decided I wasn't that invested in figuring out exactly how it's supposed to be pronounced.
The most popular one transliterates. English spelling is pretty bad, it mostly reflects pronunciation from roughly 350 years ago, plus maintains borrowed spellings. Tibetan spelling, on the other hand, was standardized 1050 years ago. English makes spelling distinctions that have largely been lost (meet/meat) but that remain in a few (dying) dialects (where meat rhymes with mate), which isn't useful for many speakers, but Tibetan has a huge amount of dialect diversity, so such a conservative orthography allows it to be used across the dialects (really the dialects are different languages; for example they have less lexical similarity between dialects than the whole Romance family does).

[goto124]

In my mouth, it rhymes with "George".

So, dodge?

[NNescio]

Butting my head in where it's not been invited:

Kriton is unambiguously correct with regards to Modern Greek. The two dialects of which I am aware that do not follow that rule are Tsakonian (Τσακωνικά) and Italiot (Κατωιταλιώτικα): collectively, they have only a couple hundred speakers.

If we're discussing Classical dialects, then both are /k/ sounds- but not the same /k/ sound.
Κ (Kappa) is an unasperated /k/, like the "c" in "cool" for English.

In Doric and other Western group ancient dialects Χ (chi) is /ks/. This is similar to the "x" in "Axe" for English.

For Attic and other Central and Eastern group ancient dialects Χ (chi) is /kh/. This is somewhat unintuitive to translate to English, as it makes an asperate distinction we do not normally consider in English. Examples in English would be "Kyle" of "Cain." You'll have to listen closely, but if you follow a K (or hard C) with an H, long A, or long I you will generally hear an asperation -effectively a very short implied H.

I think it depends on whether we pronounce β as behta/beeta instead of veeta, and χ as kai/kee instead of hee.

In which case I go with the 'classical' pronunciation, because "ὁ δ’ ἠλίθιος ὥσπερ πρόβατον βῆ βῆ λέγων βαδίζει."


"Dorje" is Tibetan. "Vajra" is Sanskrit. Same concept; different languages, like "dog" and "perro" or "cat" and "chat".

I'm going to pronounce it as KONGOU then.

(...deeeeeeesu!)

[Equilibria]

Shillelagh. Didnt know how to pronounce that until recently.
(Didnt read the whole thread so sorry if it already came up)

[Jeff the Green]

slightly similar to the situation with cat/chat, sure, but not quite with dog/perro; but of the other names listed on the page, afaict the tibetan form is in fact a transliteration, as are the tamil, bengali, malay, and indonesian; the CJK are all 金剛杵 (well, the chinese is clipped); I don't know what's going on in mongolian, but I'd wager at least Базар is also a transliteration.

Originally, yes, but now they're pronounced quite distinctly and though related etymologically can't be thought of as the same word in different scripts.


the form which appears to be རྡོ་རྗེ། (but I can't, uh, read tibetan). a brief search suggests that of more popular tibetan romanisation systems, there is one which notoriously makes sense only if familiar with tibetan linguistics, and one with phonemic but not necessarily phonetic (well, it's hard to do phonetically accurate transcription into the latin alphabet) correspondence and anyway someone apparently didn't finish writing the wikipedia article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibetan_pinyin#Coda_variation) at which point I decided I wasn't that invested in figuring out exactly how it's supposed to be pronounced.

The Wiley transliteration (which I suspect is the one you say makes sense only to those familiar with Tibetan linguistics) is "rdo rje". I used this (http://www.thlib.org/reference/transliteration/#!essay=/thl/phonetics/s/b1) transliteration scheme to figure out the pronunciation since I couldn't find anything that actually gave it and I'm led to believe that it's very close to the pronunciation of the standard dialect.


Nope. Pronounced like "bazaar."

I wouldn't be surprised if that were a transliteration of 'vajra' too, actually.

[P.F.]

Μῑνώταυρος ... /wɜːm/ for BrE (RP) ... merge it with /r/ to /ɜ~ɝ/ ... [as opposed to weird diphthongisation] ... The first is [si.ɻ] and the second [sɪɻ] ... note: prɛstɪˌdɪdʒɪˈteɪʃ(ə)n ... (Τσακωνικά) and (Κατωιταλιώτικα) ... I pronounce magic as meh-jig... 金剛杵 ... རྡོ་རྗེ། (but I can't, uh, read tibetan) ... example of ロジオン（ロマーヌイチ・ラスコーリニコフ） ... french to russian to japanese might be easier ... カラオケ ... from okinawan into japanese and then into english as kəˈɹɑːti ...

I go with the 'classical' pronunciation, because "ὁ δ’ ἠλίθιος ὥσπερ πρόβατον βῆ βῆ λέγων βαδίζει."

When I saw the title of this thread almost a week ago, I just knew this was going to be that thread. Looks like we have arrived.

[Kriton]

This is kind of awkward but I'm going to say it anyway, the phonemes for the letters of the alphabet have stayed the same throughout the history of the greek language and across its many dialects, ancient or modern.

True, the modern language is very different from the ancient one, in grammar, syntax, spelling or even some of the roots of the words used, but the alphabet is more or less the same, the same way you use the latin alphabet when writing english.

The differences we know about the various ancient dialects are some different words, different spelling of other words, and even some minor differences in syntax; even though differences in pronunciation might have existed I doubt we can have any reasonable knowledge of them, other than from the modern users of those dialects(the dialects of ancient greek still exist as dialects in modern) since the last person that used the ancient versions has died more than a thousand years in the past.

Any way I don't think that it's very important that you correct the pronunciation of the greek roots of the words you use, since different cultures perceive phonemes differently. These are just my two cents.

[lsfreak]

This is kind of awkward but I'm going to say it anyway, the phonemes for the letters of the alphabet have stayed the same throughout the history of the greek language and across its many dialects, ancient or modern.
Well, the graphemes have largely stayed the same. The phonemes have absolutely changed; five distinct vowels compared to classic Greek's 21, phi/theta/chi have remained distinct but they're clearly pronounced differently now then they were, old diphthongs - like your example Zeus - underwent changes so that ancient Greek "zde-oos" is now pronounced "zefs".


even though differences in pronunciation might have existed I doubt we can have any reasonable knowledge of them, other than from the modern users of those dialects(the dialects of ancient greek still exist as dialects in modern) since the last person that used the ancient versions has died more than a thousand years in the past.
We know a great deal about ancient pronunciation, thanks to things like spelling differences, borrowings to and from other languages, how the alphabet was arranged in different dialects, and ancient commentary. Also most of the ancient dialects are gone; Koine replaced basically all of the old dialects and modern dialects are descended from Koine, with the exceptions of Griko and Tsakonian. So most Greek dialects are related at a time depth of about 1000 years, while Griko is more like 2000 years and Tsakonian well over 3000.


Any way I don't think that it's very important that you correct the pronunciation of the greek roots of the words you use, since different cultures perceive phonemes differently. These are just my two cents.
This I'd definitely agree on. Unless you've got a good reason for trying to make something sound exotic, there's not much reason to insist on a near-native pronunciation.

[VincentTakeda]

If the correct pronunciatio of 'et cetera' is 'et ketera' I have to admit I suddenly like it much much better.

I think the contemporary one that annoys me the most is when people mispronounce 'doge'

[Flickerdart]

Shillelagh. Didnt know how to pronounce that until recently.
(Didnt read the whole thread so sorry if it already came up)
As with any words of Irish origin, the correct way to pronounce it is while drunk.

[Duke of Urrel]

the important thing about english phonology is that it is a horrific eldritch abomination (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_phonology) and that the way it is usually taught is only marginally less horrific and slightly more abominable since they only usually treat of one accent at a time.

Agreed.

This is why it's especially helpful when somebody like Fitz10019 supplies a more phonetic transcription, such as "prɛstɪˌdɪdʒɪˈteɪʃ(ə)n." These are much more helpful than any English spelling, and the phonetic symbols aren't difficult to learn.

Indeed, I envy Fitz10019's mastery of phonetic symbols. I wish I had his keyboard skills. I must say the same for others who have supplied various other symbols from other alphabets, though I am not familiar with them and can only wonder about their phonetic values. I envy you all.

But to repeat: I believe phonetic symbols are the best way to discuss pronunciation in writing.

[Fitz10019]

It is would have, should have, could have or would've, should've, could've.

It is NOT would of, should of, could of.

That just grates me to no end.

You should of said something sooner.


motion to stop talking about "short" and "long" vowels in english because seriously????? english phonics pedagogy?? confusion?????? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vowel_length#Traditional_long_and_short_vowels_in_ English_orthography)

I find 'long' and 'short' really handy for avoiding the deep end of linguistics. The "long" version of a letter matches the name of the letter: 'long i' as in 'bite', 'might' and 'I'

Slight tangent, it bugs me that the NATO alphabet doesn't stick to long vowels for those letters. Telling my German students who are learning English "A as in Alpha", "I as in India", "E as in Echo", and "O as in Oscar" is just painful because the sounds don't match. For some of those sounds, it's like saying "B as in dog" because the student associates the sound with another letter. "U as in Uniform" is the only reasonable one among the vowels.



[Fitz10019's] keyboard skills
How dare you accuse me of being skilled! It was a copy and paste from what Google yielded from "definition prestidigitation" (which is also how I get umlaut vowels when needed). I thought it would be useful to show that those three i's in the word "prestidigitation" had the same symbol in the hardcore linguistic phonetics.

[Ferronach]

Side trek:

It is would have, should have, could have or would've, should've, could've.

It is NOT would of, should of, could of.

That just grates me to no end.

Thank goodness I am not the only one who is irked by this wording!

Also along those lines, the word "drug" does not in any way relate to "drag" or any of its connotations. "He drug dragged it out"

[Andezzar]

While we're at it, their, there and they're cannot be used interchangeably, nor can than and then.

[P.F.]

While we're at it, their, there and they're cannot be used interchangeably, nor can than and then.

People using "whenever" when they mean "when." It drives me a little crazy each time.

[Kurald Galain]

While we're at it, their, there and they're cannot be used interchangeably, nor can than and then.

...people saying "compliment" when they mean "complement"...

[BWR]

Since we've already moved from pronounciation to spelling, should we move on to grammar in general?
'Lie' vs. 'lay'. It's not that hard. Seriously!

[Kurald Galain]

'Lie' vs. 'lay'. It's not that hard. Seriously!

vs. 'Lei' vs. 'Ley' vs 'Lea' :smalltongue:

[sreservoir]

Originally, yes, but now they're pronounced quite distinctly and though related etymologically can't be thought of as the same word in different scripts.

fair enough. I'm kind of coming from the (admittedly slightly harebrained) tradition of considering e.g. 了解 (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/了解#Chinese) and 了解 (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/了解#Japanese) the same word &c. (this slightly breaks down for things like 大丈夫 :p)


The Wiley transliteration (which I suspect is the one you say makes sense only to those familiar with Tibetan linguistics) is "rdo rje". I used this (http://www.thlib.org/reference/transliteration/#!essay=/thl/phonetics/s/b1) transliteration scheme to figure out the pronunciation since I couldn't find anything that actually gave it and I'm led to believe that it's very close to the pronunciation of the standard dialect.

so ... we're saying that there's some unknown transliteration scheme which renders it "dorje" but we believe this is "close" to standard dialect pronunciation, then?

(what's a somewhat standard pronunciation, would you be able find that)


I find 'long' and 'short' really handy for avoiding the deep end of linguistics. The "long" version of a letter matches the name of the letter: 'long i' as in 'bite', 'might' and 'I'

Slight tangent, it bugs me that the NATO alphabet doesn't stick to long vowels for those letters. Telling my German students who are learning English "A as in Alpha", "I as in India", "E as in Echo", and "O as in Oscar" is just painful because the sounds don't match. For some of those sounds, it's like saying "B as in dog" because the student associates the sound with another letter. "U as in Uniform" is the only reasonable one among the vowels.[/url]

the thing is, calling them "long" and "short" makes slight or negative sense except insofar as that's what got drilled into you in phonics or similar: the english short vowels are short vowels, granted. and the english long vowels are long yes, but only 1/5 of them is long vowel (e) and it's the long form of a vowel whose short form does not exist phonemically in english; english long a, i, o, u are all diphthongs, and except for i don't even incorporate the sound of the short form of the "same" vowel.

it's still useful to link the two because they're thoroughly related phonologically (and etymologically), it's just that being while it's not that useful to talk about the actual length of a vowel wrt english (since english doesn't distinguish; where it has the long vowel, it does not have the corresponding short vowel, but it uses a lot of diphthongs as basic vowels), it's really useful to be able to talk about vowel length once we start talking about derivation from latin or greek &c.

and it gets kind of awkward when someone says "minotaur is pronounced with a long i, like minos" because ... yes. indeed, Μίνως uses the long /i/ and /o/ vowels. yes, they are retained in the derivative, where in ancient greek orthographical vowel length matched phonetic vowel length fairly closely.

meanwhile in english, english vowel "length" does not generally distinguish morphemes, and the vowel in any particular morpheme will change between english long and english short depending on local stress.

so the only conclusion I can really draw is that this person is talking about derivation from the source pronunciation but it turns out ... no they're just wrong (because above).

as for matching the sounds: sure, they're kind of close, but uh ... anecdotally, I pronounce "bite", "might", "light", "climb" with /ʌɪ/, and this is fairly consistently contrastive with the vowel of "byte", "time", "by", "idle", "Ireland", a "why" /aɪ/. the name of the english long i is the same as the formers, but not the latters. now, this particular case is close enough but they appear not to be quite allophonic (they distinguish "bite"/"byte" ... no, I'm p sure this isn't reasonable given the etymology (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte#History) but that is how y is pronounced in that context [whereas i can be different] for me). but, "time", and afaict all other -ime words are in the latter group ... I could go down this list to identify which ones rhyme and which ones don't (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Rhymes:English/aɪ-) because I suspect that the two are allophonic in most positions and "byte" is a special case because y does not usually appear in that position in modern english, but my point stands.

as for it being confusing, this is not a problem which occurs in languages where orthographically related vowels are also phonetically related ;)


Agreed.

This is why it's especially helpful when somebody like Fitz10019 supplies a more phonetic transcription, such as "prɛstɪˌdɪdʒɪˈteɪʃ(ə)n." These are much more helpful than any English spelling, and the phonetic symbols aren't difficult to learn.

Indeed, I envy Fitz10019's mastery of phonetic symbols. I wish I had his keyboard skills. I must say the same for others who have supplied various other symbols from other alphabets, though I am not familiar with them and can only wonder about their phonetic values. I envy you all.

But to repeat: I believe phonetic symbols are the best way to discuss pronunciation in writing.


How dare you accuse me of being skilled! It was a copy and paste from what Google yielded from "definition prestidigitation" (which is also how I get umlaut vowels when needed). I thought it would be useful to show that those three i's in the word "prestidigitation" had the same symbol in the hardcore linguistic phonetics.

yeah I can really only type (i.e. have input methods enabled for) latin alphabet without diacritics, chinese, and japanese ... the rest is, if not copy-pasted directly from wiktionary &c., from some table or other on wikipedia ...

[sreservoir]

vs. 'Lei' vs. 'Ley' vs 'Lea' :smalltongue:

objection! except where grandfathered in on account of existing middle english texts (so it's practically a loanword ... that's quite a different language ... also I think this is the only one ... and does it even have nonzero usage?), final "ei" is not permitted in english words except loans!

objection! except in the same circumstances (with the same caveats, except this case also has "yea" which is fossilized in a few expressions), -ea is pronounced iː, except where originally a latin loan (-ɪə), neither of which can conceivably be mistaken for "lay" or "lie"!

... besides, given that the problem is literally that the simple past of lie is lay, how is that even related :p

[Fitz10019]

...as for matching the sounds: sure, they're kind of close, but uh ... anecdotally, I pronounce "bite", "might", "light", "climb" with /ʌɪ/, and this is fairly consistently contrastive with the vowel of "byte", "time", "by", "idle", "Ireland", a "why" /aɪ/. the name of the english long i is the same as the formers, but not the latters. now, this particular case is close enough but they appear not to be quite allophonic...

With the distinctions you're making, it's like a musician lecturing to the tone-deaf. The toneless masses can't grasp these distinctions, but they can grasp the difference when I say "short a like 'bat' not long a like 'bait'." Please note, I count myself among the toneless masses.

[RedMage125]

On the should've, would've could've line of thought...

I hate when people say "for all intensive purposes", it's "for all intents and purposes"

But my #1 Grammar Nazi pet-peeve is people using "irregardless". It's not a word, and given what the suffix "ir-" means, if it WERE a word, it would men the opposite of "regardless".

I like to suggest the word "irrespective", as it is usually the word people are looking for when they want a synonym for "regardless", but want an extra syllable to make themselves appear more erudite.

[georgie_leech]

On the should've, would've could've line of thought...

I hate when people say "for all intensive purposes", it's "for all intents and purposes"

But my #1 Grammar Nazi pet-peeve is people using "irregardless". It's not a word, and given what the suffix "ir-" means, if it WERE a word, it would men the opposite of "regardless".

I like to suggest the word "irrespective", as it is usually the word people are looking for when they want a synonym for "regardless", but want an extra syllable to make themselves appear more erudite.

Like using the word erudite? :smallbiggrin:

[Invader]

So, dodge?

It what way does "dodge" rhyme with "George" :smallconfused:

[Jeff the Green]

so ... we're saying that there's some unknown transliteration scheme which renders it "dorje" but we believe this is "close" to standard dialect pronunciation, then?

(what's a somewhat standard pronunciation, would you be able find that)

Huh? It's not unknown; I linked it. And like I said, I couldn't find anywhere that actually gave a pronunciation.

[lsfreak]

If we've progressed to this, while I often notice people saying/spelling things non-standardly, the only two that really bother me are hypercorrection to "X and I" when it should be "X and me," and the merging of jealousy and envy, which is a useful distinction to have around. To a much lesser extent, my best friend pronounces the t in often, and I always notice. Nothing else I run into bothers me because either they're also indistinct in speaking and we manage fine (should've/should of, its/it's, etc), or they're justifiable for other reasons, don't sound bad to me and so aren't worth getting worked up over (fewer/less, use of "me" in place of "I"), etc. Far more bothersome than any of those, I find, are teachers who say you should avoid passive voice.


so ... we're saying that there's some unknown transliteration scheme which renders it "dorje" but we believe this is "close" to standard dialect pronunciation, then?

(what's a somewhat standard pronunciation, would you be able find that)
This runs into the problems I mentioned that you could say, which standard of which dialect? From what little I know, in Classical Tibetan, if "rdo rje" is accurate it would be /rtortʃe/, which would be something like [tɔ:tɕe] in Lhasa Tibetan, the prestige dialect, but that's a really rough guess and entirely ignoring tone and aspiration developments.

[RedMage125]

Like using the word erudite? :smallbiggrin:

That was cheeky on my part, and in reference to the trait listed in the Sage background and the way they worded that. :smallbiggrin:

[sreservoir]

Huh? It's not unknown; I linked it. And like I said, I couldn't find anywhere that actually gave a pronunciation.

ah, sorry, misread it as the other way around


This runs into the problems I mentioned that you could say, which standard of which dialect? From what little I know, in Classical Tibetan, if "rdo rje" is accurate it would be /rtortʃe/, which would be something like [tɔ:tɕe] in Lhasa Tibetan, the prestige dialect, but that's a really rough guess and entirely ignoring tone and aspiration developments.

... starting to sound seriously "uhhh point to the word in the book no guidance available sorry"

[The Grue]

I think the contemporary one that annoys me the most is when people mispronounce 'doge'

I, too, get upset when people say made-up words wrong.

[Sileniy]

I, too, get upset when people say made-up words wrong.

Doge as a word actually predates the meme, by about 1500 years. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doge_of_Venice)

[georgie_leech]

Doge as a word actually predates the meme, by about 1500 years. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doge_of_Venice)

That strikes me as more of a coincidence than anything, similar to the town in Austria that will be censored by the forums. In the words of Elan's dad: "The etymologies are unrelated."

[goto124]

It what way does "dodge" rhyme with "George" :smallconfused:

...doorge? Goorge?

How do you pronounce dodge?

[The Grue]

Doge as a word actually predates the meme, by about 1500 years. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doge_of_Venice)

http://www.reactionface.info/sites/default/files/imagecache/Node_Page/images/127095609349.jpg

[SirKazum]

Well every word had to be made-up at some point, so...

[King of Casuals]

Blackguard's gotta be up there (blaggard is the more normal spelling), not helped by the fact that they introduced Grey Guards as a paladin-but-rougher.

EDIT: Had a player consistently mix up ascetic and aesthetic. Same person had another one too, and it really bothered me, but it's escaping me now. Coup de grace as "coo de grah" is probably one of the big ones too.

Just so you know, that is the correct way of pronouncing coup de grace. As a french student i learn these things.

[Andezzar]

Just so you know, that is the correct way of pronouncing coup de grace. As a french student i learn these things.You may want to get your tuition back, if you paid any. It's ˌkuː də ˈɡrɑːs according to the Oxford learner's Dictionary (http://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/coup-de-grace).

[Invader]

...doorge? Goorge?

How do you pronounce dodge?

Dodge and doorge are two entirely different pronunciations and sound nothing alike. I'm not even sure how to start explaining...

[georgie_leech]

Dodge and doorge are two entirely different pronunciations and sound nothing alike. I'm not even sure how to start explaining...

Like this. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgyk71VRoUE)

[DrMotives]

While we're at it, how does one pronounce
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn?
Is it possible for a non-Koa Toa to say that without choking to death on their own tongue?

[sreservoir]

While we're at it, how does one pronounce
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn?
Is it possible for a non-Koa Toa to say that without choking to death on their own tongue?

well, canonically not really

[Pex]

While we're at it, how does one pronounce
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn?
Is it possible for a non-Koa Toa to say that without choking to death on their own tongue?

finglooey mglwinaf kthooloo rilai-ay wgahinagl fhitagn

[atemu1234]

While we're at it, how does one pronounce
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn?
Is it possible for a non-Koa Toa to say that without choking to death on their own tongue?

Surprisingly similar to black speech in LOTR. I can pronounce it, though saying it too quickly is a no.

[Banjoman42]

I once had a player say "rug" instead of "rogue". Now none of us can ever say rogue without saying rug first. Lots of laughs when new players come to the table: "Wait, did he just say he was a rug?", "How did the rug just sneak attack me?"

[Ferronach]

I once had a player say "rug" instead of "rogue". Now none of us can ever say rogue without saying rug first. Lots of laughs when new players come to the table: "Wait, did he just say he was a rug?", "How did the rug just sneak attack me?"

Had a player say "rouge" instead of rogue. For the rest of the campaign we were making make-up related jokes :)

[No brains]

I've known people who say scimitar as sycamore. Supposedly they just liked the sound of that word better.

[P.F.]

I've known people who say scimitar as sycamore. Supposedly they just liked the sound of that word better.

I find it hard to believe that there is more than one person who does this.

Also, I pronounce "Praxis" exactly the same way as "Proxy," as if it were a French word.

[Andezzar]

I've known people who say scimitar as sycamore. Supposedly they just liked the sound of that word better.Not sure what you mean. There is no k sound in ˈsi-mə-tər (http://media.merriam-webster.com/soundc11/s/scimit01.wav) or ˈsi-mə-ˌtär (source Merriam Webster (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/scimitar)).

[No brains]

I find it hard to believe that there is more than one person who does this.

Also, I pronounce "Praxis" exactly the same way as "Proxy," as if it were a French word.


Not sure what you mean. There is no k sound in ˈsi-mə-tər (http://media.merriam-webster.com/soundc11/s/scimit01.wav) or ˈsi-mə-ˌtär (source Merriam Webster (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/scimitar)).

It wasn't a matter of misreading anything, they (the habit spread from one person to another, believe it or not) just liked saying, "Drizzt (not Drizz-it) swings sycamores".

I've known a couple different groups of people that find intentional mispronunciation funny. I find it funny occasionally, having watched Rugrats. I like saying "Everything's going accordion to plan," myself.

[Razanir]

An etymological history of "magus", along with plurals and pronunciations. (Always listed singular, plural)

Μάγος, Μάγοι. MAH-gohs, MAH-goi. Ancient Greek for "magician". In Modern Greek, the latter is pronounced MAH-gee.

It was borrowed into Latin. It was changed to "magus", and the plural became "magi". We don't actually know how the Ancient Romans would have pronounced things, but our best guess is MAH-goose, MAH-gee. (Note that it's a hard G in both cases) Over time, Latin pronunciation shifted to become more like modern Italian. So in the ecclesiastical pronunciation (which is pretty much the one people recognize), the plural is MAH-jee.

From there, it was borrowed into English. This is where things get weird.

"Magi" was Anglicized. We kept the consonants from ecclesiastical Latin, but Anglicized the vowels to make it MAY-jai or /mæˈd͡ʒaɪ/ (Mostly the same, but A as in CAT).

"Magus" should be pronounced MAY-gus. And I even checked a dictionary. But as a common mispronunciation, people with use a soft G by comparison to "magi".

[NNescio]

It wasn't a matter of misreading anything, they (the habit spread from one person to another, believe it or not) just liked saying, "Drizzt (not Drizz-it) swings sycamores".

I've known a couple different groups of people that find intentional mispronunciation funny. I find it funny occasionally, having watched Rugrats. I like saying "Everything's going accordion to plan," myself.

So Drizzt dual-wields trees? Must have picked up Monkey Grip from somewhere.