How do you pronunce "grognard"?

[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?