Stop Combining Words in RPGs! - Let English prevail

[RefinedBean]

The combined words don't really bother me. The naming conventions on the other hand...

If someone tells you that 4e has no word silliness in it, ask them to name the different types of armor and see how far they get.

True, 4e names are horrible. And as they keep releasing more powers and more items, it's only going to get worse.

There's only so many unique, fantasy-oriented names for magical daggers. It's going to sound like Tycho's hyperbolic rantings from Penny Arcade.

 

[Wayside]

(emphasis mine)
Oddly enough...

Hussar is right when it comes to most dialects of English, but you seem to be confusing pronunciation with orthography. Syllables that are immediately preceded by another syllable don't start with vowels, regardless of how they're spelled. "Liaison" has a glide to smooth over what would otherwise be a glottal stop. It's the same reason the indefinite article gets that extra "n" when followed by a vowel: "a vowel," "an avowal." I.e.: "A screaming comes across the sky," in its original context, begins with a vowel, while "Bring me a donut" has a glide between "me" and "a," as in "Bring me yay donut." If "jackanapes" was supposed to be another example of a syllable beginning with a vowel, that's not correct either. It's 'dʒæ·kə·neıps.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Hussar is right when it comes to most dialects of English, but you seem to be confusing pronunciation with orthography. Syllables that are immediately preceded by another syllable don't start with vowels, regardless of how they're spelled.

"Buckeye"
(buk′ī′)
"Oogenesis"
(ō′ō jen′e sis)
"Oracle"
(ôr-e-kel)

(the boldfaced letters are symbols that can't be typed on my machine, AFAIK, like an upside down "e")

If "jackanapes" was supposed to be another example of a syllable beginning with a vowel, that's not correct either. It's 'dʒæ·kə·neıps.

Sources may vary, it seems...
"jackanapes"
(jak′e nāps′)

"Bring me a donut" has a glide between "me" and "a," as in "Bring me yay donut."

Not when I say it...but then my speech can be quite staccato at times.

 

[Hussar]

DannyAlcatraz - sigh.

Try actually saying any of those words out loud. Do you really say "buck eye" with a space there? Really? Honestly? That would be a very strange accent if you do.

When you say buckeye, you say it as buh kai. Same as you would say redeye as reh die.

Look, if you don't believe me, Google it. Look at sites like this one and you'll see what I'm talking about.

 

[Fifth Element]

You know what I find absurd? Insistence on a language remaining in one form. Our language has already changed from times far back. Why should we think now that that process should halt? Would halt?

ic i acorde

(I think. My Old English is pretty poor).

 

[Wayside]

"Buckeye"
(buk′ī′)
"Oogenesis"
(ō′ō jen′e sis)
"Oracle"
(ôr-e-kel)

(the boldfaced letters are symbols that can't be typed on my machine, AFAIK, like an upside down "e")

Sources may vary, it seems...
"jackanapes"
(jak′e nāps′)

Sorry if I wasn't clear. None of what you're posting are accurate phonetic transcriptions of these words. They're written by lexicographers to help laymen with pronunciation, nothing more. Actual linguists most certainly do not vary on this, and have more robust systems of notation than just the English alphabet ('dʒækəneıps is written in IPA, for example).

It's by no means uncommon that you weren't aware of this discrepancy. Syllabification in written English (hyphenated words at the end of lines of justified text, for example) follows completely different rules and is not phonetically correct (it's morphologically consistent instead), and these are the rules that the common dictionaries you're citing use. But unless you're a linguist it's far more useful to know the dictionary rules.

(Although it's interesting to note that in the case of "Warmage," written, i.e. morphological, and spoken, i.e. phonetic, syllabification coincide: it's "War·mage" either way.)

Not when I say it...but then my speech can be quite staccato at times.

There are dialects of and occasional phrases in English that use glottal stops. "Uh-oh," for example. If you don't say "me a" like "uh-oh," you say it like "me yay" whether you realize it or not.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

DannyAlcatraz - sigh.

Try actually saying any of those words out loud. Do you really say "buck eye" with a space there? Really? Honestly? That would be a very strange accent if you do.

and

If you don't say "me a" like "uh-oh," you say it like "me yay" whether you realize it or not.

Some people have noted that my speech has a precision and staccato nature on occasion that is quite unusual.

The space is rather small, but I do not say "Buck-kai," I say "Buck eye" (and "Red eye," FWIW); I actually do not say "me yay," but "me a"

Why? I can't say. I was born in New Orleans (La), but I'm an Army brat. I've lived in San Antonio (Tx)- twice, Tacoma (Wa), Stuttgart (Germany), Aurora (Co), Manhattan (Ks), 2 suburbs within the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex (Tx) and Austin (Tx). I'm sure each location put a different little stamp on my linguistics.

Sorry if I wasn't clear. None of what you're posting are accurate phonetic transcriptions of these words. They're written by lexicographers to help laymen with pronunciation, nothing more.
<snip>
But unless you're a linguist it's far more useful to know the dictionary rules.

I never claimed to be a linguist, but its pretty clear to me that a word pronounced "Oooh Oh Genesis" or "Jack Ah Napes" (usin' that thar reg'lar typin') has a clear vowel sound in the interior spaces...


At any rate, we've probably spent enough of this thread on this particular aspect of the arcana of the English language.

 

[Wayside]

The space is rather small, but I do not say "Buck-kai," I say "Buck eye" (and "Red eye," FWIW); I actually do not say "me yay," but "me a"

Why? I can't say. I was born in New Orleans (La), but I'm an Army brat. I've lived in San Antonio (Tx)- twice, Tacoma (Wa), Stuttgart (Germany), Aurora (Co), Manhattan (Ks), 2 suburbs within the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex (Tx) and Austin (Tx). I'm sure each location put a different little stamp on my linguistics.

It's not unusual when speaking formally. Poets and people trained in giving readings of poems generally speak this way when they read, for example, in order to emphasize all the qualities of the words they're using. They also use fewer schwas.

but its pretty clear to me that a word pronounced "Oooh Oh Genesis" or "Jack Ah Napes" (usin' that thar reg'lar typin') has a clear vowel sound in the interior spaces...

It does, but between the two vowels there is a glide. They form a diphthong. It's like when you stub your toe and say "ow": two vowels joined by a glide. They aren't even necessarily distinct syllables--in "oogenesis" there's a hiatus, thus two syllables, but "ow" is unitary.

 

[Fifth Element]

Some people have noted that my speech has a precision and staccato nature on occasion that is quite unusual.

And as such your ideolect is of little use when discussing how the language is normally pronounced.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

And as such your ideolect is of little use when discussing how the language is normally pronounced.

My pronunciation is based on the pronunciation guides I find in dictionaries- Merriam-Webster, OED, and occasionally Dictionary.com if looking online. These are sources widely available and are considered to be fairly standard for common English usage.

That I might pronounce something actually as written in a standard source is not my problem. To my ear, many people are lax in their use of the language.

That those same guides are inaccurate and imprecise as far as linguists are concerned is not my problem. Perhaps they shouldn't have been dumbed down for the rest of us.

The point is, I'm no linguist and never claimed to be. I pronounce things as depicted in dictionaries. Someone with superior knowledge- a linguist, for instance- can cite superior knowledge and more formal and rigorous proof to counter mine.

Someone made an assertion, which I countered with the best sources I had. That my sources might not be the best is quite possible.

The discussion at that point wasn't about my personal speech patterns, it was about standard (but apparently sub-best/non-linguist level) reference sources on the rules of language.

SUBSEQUENTLY, not germane to the meat of the discussion, some asserted that I couldn't honestly be pronouncing the words I cited as counterexamples in the way my sources say they should be pronounced, and that my speech didn't contain certain stops. IOW, that on some level I was being intellectually dishonest for the purpose of making a point in this thread.

All such assertions I denied.

Besides, as you surely know, how something is "normally" pronounced varies greatly from country to country, region to region, city to city, and in certain cases, neighborhood to neighborhood.

For example, "Praline" has several distinctly different pronunciations as you go from one end of the Southern USA to the other. In my home state of Louisiana, its "prah-leen." In Texas, where I live, its "pray-leen." And in certain areas East of the Mississippi, its "prah-reem"- how the "r" and "m" creep in, I have no idea.

Standard pronunciation is, in some way, a myth confined to books.

Tomato, toMAHto, potato, potAHto...