Words are hard!

[DogBackward]

If you really want to see gamers froth at the mouth [...] coup de grace.

Especially the people that only think they know how it's pronounced. Like in one of my old groups.

Player One: And I'll finish this guy with another coop de grace.
Player Two: Argh! It's pronounced coo. De. Grah!
Me and Player Three: Well, actually...

(Hint: It's actually pronounced "coo de grass".)

 

[TarionzCousin]

The last seems pretty reasonable

Except that in the Planescape setting it explicitly states that the name of the city is pronounced "sig-ill." Mispronouncing it is one way the locals identify the noobs.

 

[Lwaxy]

It's weirder with Germans sometimes not knowing all that much English (as in only school English) and then learn with RPGs.

Melee is a typical example. From milay to mehla I've heard about everything.

Ensign - it is not an N sign. It is an ensign. But even those with good grasp of English can't agree how to pronounce it. Doesn't matter that i know I'm right and would show them the info in wiktionary - it is still done wrong.

bannister - ban-ee-steer, banestor, baneister, behnistor... I gave up on that one and some of the following...

dais - daas, dis, dezz...

charisma - char-is mah, karism, charmisma...

candelabra - yes, it is officially a candlebra for us. Yes, we know how to pronounce it but someone saying it wrong one time has changed it for us. and hey, it makes sense, it holds candles. Glad to see we are not the only ones. Of course there is also a magic piece of female armor now with the same name

In the same manner, a brazier is a braseer for us

When in doubt and all players speak German, we switch to that. Portcullis is such a stupid word we just call it fall-grate even in English.

 

[Aberzanzorax]

for me Scythe.

I always pronounce it "Sith" instead of sithe (like writhe).


Also, when I was a kid, I already knew the word rondevoo (misspelt on purpose)...a meeting.

But in fourth grade vocabulary I had to learn this word...which also meant a meeting: ren-dez-vous. It took me several years to realize that rondevoo was not spelled that way, and was not a synonym for rendezvous.

 

[Al'Kelhar]

Chimera anyone?

I always pronounced it "shim-i-ra" (emphasis on the first syllable).

Strictly, I believe it's pronounced "ky-meer-a" (emphasis on the second syllable).

I also had trouble with "awry" up until I was in my mid-20s. I always pronounced it "aw-ree", rather than its correct "a-rye".

Cheers, Al'Kelhar

 

[Erekose]

Ah for me it was Cimmerian as in "Conan the Cimmerian". I always wanted to pronounce it as Kimmerian - after all it is Konan!

Even now many years later I still "feel" that it should be pronounced that way!

 

[Jon_Dahl]

Tell me about it. In my games I usually try to translate everything. The best way to make the game more playable is to bring English words - which are sometimes nasty to pronounce - into something easier so we can concentrate on playing and not on tongue-twisting. Translating things is often a pain but it pays off in the long run. For instance in my previous session no one could figure out how to translate "Your Ladyship" so we went with English.

But we can't always escape difficult words. For instance one of the players has problems with "Boccob" (I can certainly sympathize with that).

During my free-time I actively try to learn English and all its nuances. It's certainly a difficult language and I have problems with pronunciation. E.g. the silent letters are hard like in the word "debt" and even the word "were" is pronounced in variety of ways in my class (my teacher says it like "wear" and I say it like "worm").

So my advice? Use some other language than English

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

The only one I can think of that I have mispronounced is "dweomer". Not being at all a common word in English I had never HEARD it spoken. Normally this would not have been a problem as I've always been quite adept at getting pronunciations correct without needing to hear them. But that one I went by what the guys in my early gaming group used for pronunciation and never looked it up or heard it elsewhere. So, I learned to pronounce it as dwee-oh-murr, instead of dwimmer.

On the other hand, I at least can pronounce arcana correctly as I was watching a video on youtube a few days ago and hearing Chris Perkins repeatedly say ar-CAN-ah instead of ar-kay-nah just really grated. Even people who probably ought to know better never learned a few correctly.

 

[Thotas]

Some people insist on pronouncing the planar city of Sigil as "sijil",

That is the correct way to pronounce it if you're going to spell it like that. The way you're "supposed to" pronounce would be spelled "Sighil". It's not my fault that The Lady of Pain is apparently illiterate.

 

[Fifth Element]

That is the correct way to pronounce it if you're going to spell it like that. The way you're "supposed to" pronounce would be spelled "Sighil". It's not my fault that The Lady of Pain is apparently illiterate.

Indeed. You can't take an existing English word, change the pronunciation arbitrarily, and expect people to not get it "wrong".

It's spelled Raymond Luxury-Yacht, but it's pronounced Throatwobbler-Mangrove!