How do you pronunce "grognard"?

[MNblockhead]

What does it say about me who says MAY-lee.

That your American, according to the dictionaries I've looked at.

 

[MNblockhead]

I've always gone with "meh-LEE", so...?

"D&D combats are such slog, I'm so bored with the meh-lee." ;-)

 

[Gradine]

I've always pronounced it "GROG-hawk"

 

[Sir Brennen]

-

 

[Guest 7034872]

Someone has to say it:

"Snarf."

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I still say it should be pronounced "grown nerd" because I think that's funny.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

If I'm saying the whole word, 3.

If I'm shortening it to "grog", 2.

Re: melee unfortunately my brain is totally stuck on mee-lee (or more specifically m'lee), even though I know perfectly well that maylay is correct.

What does it say about me who says MAY-lee.

That feels like a Southern pronunciation, but not like Deep South. More like Kentucky or something maybe. I quite like it. "Gentlemen, you will stand seven paces apart and then engage in a maylee!".

 

[aramis erak]

In the context of D&D, I've always pronounced it "GRAWN-yard", sort of an American bastardization of the French pronunciation.

I tend to the groǧ-nard - where the ǧ is a voiced non-plosive sound, rather than the glottally stopped hard g at the front.
I don't grok IPA well enough to use it.

 

[Sir Brennen]

That feels like a Southern pronunciation, but not like Deep South. More like Kentucky or something maybe. I quite like it. "Gentlemen, you will stand seven paces apart and then engage in a maylee!".

Deep south would be "... and then engage in maaay-lay"

 

[aramis erak]

What does it say about me who says MAY-lee.

You don't apply the vowel-consonant-vowel rule... and mix classical and modern English vowel pronunciationss in the same word.

My preferred is may-lay (equal stress), or the variant on the French, which is closer to meh-LAY or muh-LAY, at least according to the Qebecois, Cajuns, and Creoles I've known say it.

Then again, I also usually prefer to see it spelled in English with diacritics, melée, witch makes it mee-LEE. (vowel-consonant-vowel rule, double e rule, acute accent denotes stressed syllable when not 1st. The diacritic French being mêlée...

I hate French orthography, but once you learn the "dozen oh's" (o, ou, eau, eaux, etc...), it's mostly consistent.

 

[ThrorII]

Then again, I also usually prefer to see it spelled in English with diacritics, melée, witch makes it mee-LEE. (vowel-consonant-vowel rule, double e rule, acute accent denotes stressed syllable when not 1st.

Crap!?! You mean I actually pronounce it correctly based on English rules?????

 

[aramis erak]

Crap!?! You mean I actually pronounce it correctly based on English rules?????

Standard American English rules, yes. Most of the US doesn't use them, tho'. And the UK Received Pronunciation English rules are slightly different... but I've only taught US SAE.

 

[BigJackBrass]

Considering that most people voting think they stress the second syllable it's odd that everyone I've heard (talking about the gamers, not the historical troops) stresses the first, regardless of their nationality.

 

[Edgar Ironpelt]

"GROG nard", almost like it's two words, and almost with the same emphasis on both syllables.

It never occurred to me there was any other way to pronounce it.

Me too.
Piggybacking rather than creating a post to explain my "some other way" choice.

 

[delericho]

Rhymes with 'drow'.

 

[delericho]

More seriously, I don't think I've ever actually said 'grognard' - I've only ever used it in written form. It's strange how many words that is true of.

But I daresay Edith Piaf has the pronunciation correct.

 

[DMZ2112]

Considering that most people voting think they stress the second syllable it's odd that everyone I've heard (talking about the gamers, not the historical troops) stresses the first, regardless of their nationality.

Agreed, I can't believe this is accurate. I think folks must be responding to the difference between 'nard' and 'nerd' more than the syllable emphasis. I've never once heard anyone put the emphasis on the second syllable. No emphasis at all, maybe, but never on the second syllable.

Fascinated to learn that it means 'old soldier' and was originally French. First time having that explained!

 

[TolkienThePiss]

Agreed, I can't believe this is accurate. I think folks must be responding to the difference between 'nard' and 'nerd' more than the syllable emphasis. I've never once heard anyone put the emphasis on the second syllable. No emphasis at all, maybe, but never on the second syllable.

Fascinated to learn that it means 'old soldier' and was originally French. First time having that explained!

It actually, literally, meant a "Grumbler" and was supposedly a nickname bestowed upon the Imperial Grenadiers by Napoleon himself because they never stopped complaining. The name stuck around - there is a character in The Count of Monte Cristo (1846), a former Grognard, who lets everyone know that things were better under the old emperor and takes steps to put him back on the throne.

He'd fit in well in the Edition Wars - sweeping all of our 5e books off of the table and demanding we play his dusty old copy of Chainmail instead! Or at least spending the whole session lettings us know why Attack Matrices are better than adding up!

 

[Tonguez]

GROG-Nad because it rhymes with Go-Nad and is thus funnier

 

[DMZ2112]

It actually, literally, meant a "Grumbler" and was supposedly a nickname bestowed upon the Imperial Grenadiers by Napoleon himself because they never stopped complaining. The name stuck around - there is a character in The Count of Monte Cristo (1846), a former Grognard, who lets everyone know that things were better under the old emperor and takes steps to put him back on the throne.

He'd fit in well in the Edition Wars - sweeping all of our 5e books off of the table and demanding we play his dusty old copy of Chainmail instead! Or at least spending the whole session lettings us know why Attack Matrices are better than adding up!

Do you or anyone else on the thread know when we started using it? I am honestly a little surprised I never thought about this before, but I feel like this has to be the result of old wargamers -- or rather, young wargamers from a long time ago -- complaining about even older wargamers.

1986 start, incidentally, so I'm kind of a... grognennial?