Misunderstanding the Culture

[Henry]

Come to think of it, we also have shugenja as "shoo-KEN-ja" from some people I know.

If they are old-timers, then the original Oriental Adventures as well as several Dragon Magazine articles spelled it "shukenja", and that's the way I knew it until about the year 2002!

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

Not game-related, but medieval, of a sort.

In English lit class in high school, we were reading Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, when the hot-but-not-too-bright girl in front of me raised her hand. The teacher stopped and called on her, at which point she asked, "Why did the knight chop the girl's head off?"

The passage in question, from the Wife of Bath's Tale, included "by very force he took her maidenhead."

 

[shilsen]

Not game-related, but medieval, of a sort.

In English lit class in high school, we were reading Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, when the hot-but-not-too-bright girl in front of me raised her hand. The teacher stopped and called on her, at which point she asked, "Why did the knight chop the girl's head off?"

The passage in question, from the Wife of Bath's Tale, included "by very force he took her maidenhead."

 

[jasper]

Speaking of back pronucation back while dm White plume I got stuck on saying trinket when I meant trident. Of course my players played stupid for 5 minutes while making fun of me. Now it is funny but then I wanted to shove a trident up their backsides and make a trinket of their small brains

 

[Snapdragyn]

I have a DM who consistently pronounces drow as 'dro' (rhymes with 'no' or 'show' instead of 'cow' or 'how').

 

[Mapleaxe]

You know that was my biggest dissapointment as well.

(which reminds me, I need to see if its on DVD, my copy is about to disintegrate...)

'tis on DVD. Has decent enough commentary. Got it two years ago for Christmas. Taunted endlessly by friends ever since.

 

[Presto2112]

This was a long time ago, when I was 15 (I'm now 31), but one guy I gamed with had a Wizard named Bruno. He insisted that Bruno could cast two fireballs at once. His reasoning? "He's got two hands, he should be able to cast two spells!"

 

[Presto2112]

Nor had I.

I try to learn something new every day...

I tried that for a while, but every thing I learned pushed out something I already knew.

Now I'm almost ready to go... to that... place... where my beds and TV... is.

 

[Mercule]

Lessee...

In high school, after describing all the races to a new player, including how graceful, etc. elves were; he said, in total seriousness, "You mean all elves are gay?"

An experienced player once asked during character creation, "What do I roll for AC?"

Mispronounciations:

In Mage: the Ascension, there is a stat called "Arete" that represents metaphysical understanding. After having a discussion with some people about what the right way to pronounce it was, I decided to go look it up so we got the right answer. Turns out there is a Greek (?) word 'ar-uh-TAY' that translates to 'enlightenment' and a French (?) word 'AR-eet' that means the spine of a mountain. When told this, they said (in effect), "Well, neither really applies, so we'll use 'AR-eet'."

I knew a fellow who used to say 'puh-LAHD-in' instead of 'PAL-ah-din'. This is even after shown a dictionary with the pronounciation key.

And, everyone in my current group insists on saying 'chazm' instead of 'kazm' and 'PIE-tahn' instead of 'PEE-tahn'.

Oh, for the record, I hadn't herd of a 'domino mask' either.

 

[VirgilCaine]

Pronunciation is still a big problem for me - luckily, Merriam-Webster's web site has a wonderful audio feature that helps. To this day, though, I still don't know the correct spelling or pronunciation of "guisarme." I couldn't figure out what it was until I saw a picture of it in the original Unearthed Arcana.

Gee, it should have been on the darn weapon tables. Anyway, I say it "Gwee-zaar-m."