How do you pronounce "Drow"?

[Snoweel]

/me runs to post the first ever roleplaying-pointbuy-Drowcow vs rollplaying-randomgeneration-Drowthrow poll...

 

[diaglo]

As in "bow."

or row.


but not bow or row.

 

[drakhe]

Funny how people's minds change over the years...

For years, it was drow(oh), and I didn't like drow(cow) at all (don't ask me why,it's pure feeling). But then I played hordes of the underdark (NWN) and gotten used to hearing drow(cow) that I kinda switched.

here's a proposition: why not use drow(oh) for a single drow and drow(cow) for the plural?

Anyhoe, drow will allways be drow (until you meat Drizzt, and start to ask "How do you pronounce Drizzt????") - Can of worms anyone?

(btw: I pronounce drizzt as drist(mist), while ome of my buddies insist on driz'zt or even drizit... go figure)

 

[tetsujin28]

My immediate circle of players had always pronounced "Drow" as rhyming with "go". Then one day, I met a player who pronounced it as rhyming with "cow", which I thought was thoroughly wrong and hideous!

A year or so ago that Vin Deasil(sp?) person was on the Conan O'Brian Show and went off on some tangent regarding his "Specialist Mage Drow" (with "Drow" as in "cow") and I was horrified. I thought "Great. Now the whole gaming world will pronounce it incorrectly".

Anyway, how do you pronounce it?

You are all wrong and heinous. It's as in "cow". Always has been. I have no idea where the incredibly wrong-thinking "go" pronunciation came from.

 

[Hand of Evil]

See official answer:

http://www.enworld.org/forums/showpost.php?p=219714&postcount=48

 

[d4]

i usually pronounce it "dark elf."

saves a lot of trouble.

 

[HellHound]

I pronounce it

Bou-Lay.

 

[Umbran]

How it is officially supposed to be pronounced is irrelevant. My apologies to Gary and all the other folks who originated it. The choice between prnounciations is simple...

Choose between:

"Oh wow! It's a drow!" and "Oh no! It's a drow!"

For my money, rhyming drow with cow leads towards nasal pronounciation. The name of this race should strike the heart, raise dread in all who hear it. "Cow"-style just doesn't do that.

 

[Grodd JoJoJo]

Okay, best answer I can give - I pronounce it "droe."
I do this because it's obviously derived from the word "trow," which is pronounced "troe." See the British folklore expert Katherine Briggs (Encyclopedia of Fairies, Fairies in Tradition and Literature) for this one.

 

[Alaric_Prympax]

Since the first time I saw the Drow in AD&D Module A2 Secrets of the Slavers Stockade I have always rhymed it with 'go'. It never for an instant occurred to me to rhyme it with cow. Drow(go) sound much more dark, dank, and menancing then something that rhymes with cow. It really doesn't matter to me who else pronounces it rhyming with cow because my game is... well... my game, not theirs. What are the Drow going to do? Storm into my house and confiscate all my D&D books during my next game session?

I'll tell you something too. Drow IMC are still CE the way they were meant to be since 1e, not NE, so when they turn on each other trying to divide my hoard of books; I'll get away and counterattack when they're still arguing.

How's that for opening up another can of worms.