Unpopular opinions go here

[AnotherGuy]

Sharyn McCrumb is right it is just ironic she mispronounced Donegal.

 

[Autumnal]

D&D is weird. People who want to make D&D less weird, like a po-faced hybrid of Tolkien's work and Howard's work... are really overlooking how weird Tolkien and Howard were.

Yes yes yes. Both built worlds chock full of everything they loved. So did Arneson and Gygax. So should GMs and players. The desire to make things consistent in a very narrow way was there pretty much from the beginning, but was much a bad idea then as now, in almost every case. It’s much harder than a satisfying conceptual stew or casserole, and its characteristic fail state is tedium for everybody but the creator. The default should be happy messes.

 

[Bedrockgames]

It's much as Sharyn McCrumb says. It's like the sound of nails on chalkboard. When we hear App-uh-LAY-Shun, we hear condescension. We hear people telling us that we are uneducated, impoverished, inbred hillbillies and rednecks. We hear people assuming that we are wrong about how the mountains are pronounced because we can't possibly know better than someone from New York, Massachussetts, or California. We hear people trying to culturally erase us. We hear a continued struggle for our regional and cultural identity. We hear people who are ashamed to be from the region because of its aformentioned associations, and who want to be regarded as "high society." We hear LBJ, RFK, and reporters objectifying us as part of their poverty tour of the Appalachian mountains. We hear New Yorkers in the early 1900s who believed that the hiking trail that goes through our mountains would sound better if they changed it to App-uh-LAY-Shun.

Yes. People in different places pronounce things differently, but reality is not that darn childishly simplistic. And it's not ridiculous for the people who live there or are from there and our experiences. It's only ridiculous for the people who can't be bothered to care, learn, or change about these issues after they have been told about them. I have many friends and acquaintances across the United States outside of the Appalchian Mountains and American Southeast. They may not have said "app-puh-LATCH-uhn" when we first met, but I promise you that they do now.

It isn't 1900 and no one from Massachusetts or New York is saying you re pronouncing it wrong or making any kind of claim about your culture. Whatever the historical reasons, that is how people here pronounce it. You trying to impose a pronunciation on them is just as much of an issue as them trying to impose a pronunciation on you.

I have read seen that woman's video and I have read some on the articles on this, I just don't think you can expect people who grew up saying things different ways, to suddenly start using local pronuniciation. Especially when it is very difficult because they are so used to pronouncing g it the other way. I also think you are reading way too much into why people pronounce things the way they do. I mean if someone comes there with an attitude and is rude about it, sure take offense. If someone is just prounouncing the game of your region, city, state, etc because that is how people talk where they are from, taking offense seems like a real overreaction to me

 

[Bedrockgames]

Here in Arkansas, we have a town called El Dorado. How do you think it is pronounced? It's "El Duh-rah-dough." Surprised the hell out of me. How about Stuttgart, Arkansas? It's pronounced "Stutt-gart." I used to live in Germany, and when I moved here I used the German pronunciation and this dude looked at me like he was ready to tear my head off and corrected me. Some people are really, really touchy about their pronunciations.

I think though the people who are really touchy are the ones who are wrong. I got beat up as a kid because I had a Boston accent when I moved to the west coast (there was a very concrete 'correct way to talk' over there). I think anyone who gets that angry over another person's way of talking (whether it is over an accent, over a person using different syntax because of regional dialect or because they are speaking in a second language) can build whatever rational they want to justify their overeaction. But it is still an overreaction. This whole idea that there is one right way to say any given word just ignores how much variety there is going to naturally be. Obviously if someone is trying to be a jerk that is different. But here we are just talking about people who either walk into a situation and have no knowledge of the pronunciation difference or who find it hard to change they way they speak. And I say all that coming from a place where people get seriously bent out of shape if you put the accent in the wrong place on Peabody (it's Pee-B'dee) or pronounce Haverhill "Haver Hill" (its more like Have rill). I love sharing local pronunciation with people, and I am a proud local, but I am not going to bite someones' head off like I see some people do over that (their just pronouncing Peabody the way 90 percent of the world pronounces that word).

 

[Reynard]

I can't imagine caring that much how other people talk.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I can't imagine caring that much how other people talk.

People just talk differently and it is not easy to change the way you pronounce words. I get @Aldarc’s concern if people are telling folks there to change how they pronounce Appalachia (especially if it’s because they are being elitist). I think telling locals to talk differently and locals telling outsiders to talk differently, is unreasonable, and insulting.

 

[cranberry]

WoTC should keep half elves and half orcs as their own separate species. (and rename them if necessary)

 

[Reynard]

WoTC should keep half elves and half orcs as their own separate species. (and rename them if necessary)

WotC should eliminate half species entirely, along with making "humans only" the base line assumption.

 

[aramis erak]

WotC should eliminate half species entirely, along with making "humans only" the base line assumption.

Without the Demihumans, D&D loses much of its fantasy appeal and much of the average players' ability to excuse the violence endemic to D&D adventures.

 

[Reynard]

Without the Demihumans, D&D loses much of its fantasy appeal and much of the average players' ability to excuse the violence endemic to D&D adventures.

The vast majority of Appendix N includes fantastical worlds and adventures in which the protagonists are all and only human.