How do you pronounce "Drow?"
Richard Saunders CIRT
Forgive me, I'm just a human. And a male one at that. I always *assumed*
that "Drow" rhymes with "row" but then I heard someone say it in a way that
rhymes with "cow." Shocked and dismayed, I took a poll among those who I
know and the results were totally inconclusive.
And while I'm at it, how do you say "Geas?"
Gooday,
Richie
Jeffery Greene
I believe that the "official" pronunciation of "DROW" is that it rhymes with
"COW".
jgr...@dorm.rutgers.edu
Coyt D Watters
Ok, I'm not a linguist, but it depends on your gaming world.
If Drow is pronounced Droe buy the NPCs, then that's the common pronounciation.
Likewise the Drow (rhymes with Cow) is a local thing.
(We just call them Dark Elves, they call themselves Lolothians.)
Geas - gi ass
It's an accent thing, which a DM can put to good use. The locals where the
party is adventuring don't have to have the same pronunciations or even the
same words:
i.e. Goblin (gobl' - in) may be pronounced gyblon (guy -blon') in one section
of the world, but the word Goober is used elsewhere. 'ork, Hork, orsh may all
refer to the same creature.
Common only means that many of the words are the same, enough to communicate.
For Role-Playing, the accent thing can be a lot of fun:
A human is taught elvish by a halfling who learned it in the eastern plains.
When the human encounters some elves in the high wood, he finds that he has a
hard time comprehending what is being said, and the elves laugh at him when
he speaks. The dialect, modes of address, and idioms are different, and
the wood elves probably think their plains cousins are "lesser" elves, thus
the humor in the badly misspoken elvish.
--
Coyt D. Watters cwat...@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu
Oh I like MUMPS, everything's a string. Oh I like MUMPS, math's done wrong.
Oh I like MUMPS, DATA as CODE as DATA as CODE as... is a lot of fun.
Oh I like MUMPS, passing an indirect variable reference as a parameter is ok.
Robert Andrew Christian
Ryk E Spoor
Drow as in cow -- how now, black Drow? Everyone I play with says it
that way. I was really surprised to see this post.
>And while I'm at it, how do you say "Geas?"
Several ways I've heard it: Ghee -is, ghee-ass, jee-is, jee-ass...
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Kent Jenkins
-Thenomain
[Oh, I'm sorry! Yes, that is a nice hand-crossbow you have...]
jeff wilder
|Forgive me, I'm just a human. And a male one at that. I always *assumed*
|that "Drow" rhymes with "row" but then I heard someone say it in a way that
|rhymes with "cow." Shocked and dismayed, I took a poll among those who I
|know and the results were totally inconclusive.
According to the guy who (supposedly) invented "Drow," it rhymes with cow. Oh,
that "guy" is E. Gary Gygax.
|And while I'm at it, how do you say "Geas?"
I have no clue how it *should* be pronounced, but I say it /gay' uhs/.
--
================================================================================
| Jeff W uk0...@ukpr.uky.edu | Meddle not in the affairs of cats, for they |
| Wilder & wil...@mik.uky.edu | are subtle, and will piss on your cyberdeck. |
================================================================================
Maurice Beyke
>
>According to the guy who (supposedly) invented "Drow," it rhymes with cow. Oh,
>that "guy" is E. Gary Gygax.
>
alternative form of "dwerrow". Which is the plural of dwarf, in some
archaic form.
I always thought TSR got very confused with drow. Obviously "Dark Elf" is
a translation of "Svartalf", but Svartalfheim was the home of dwarfs
(dwerrows) in Norse myth. How they decided to stretch them out, shave
their beards, and give them black skin and white hair, I never figured out.
Better than what Disney did to them, I guess.
_____________________________________________________________________________
| __ / aka Maurice Beyke \ Disclaimer: Any opinions |
| / _) __ * __ / m...@batman.b11.ingr.com \ expressed are totally |
| /-( / ) /--\ / ( / bey...@infonode.ingr.com \ ludicrous, & should |
|/___)(__/ / / __)/Hi ho, hi ho, its (thuk) thud\ be simply ignored. |
|____________________/_______________________________\______________________|
Cricket
>
>
>|And while I'm at it, how do you say "Geas?"
>
>I have no clue how it *should* be pronounced, but I say it /gay' uhs/.
>
Well, "geas" is not currently in the Oxford English Dictionary, but I believe
the pronunciation should be /ghee' uhs/.
Cricket
"Dammit, Jim, I'm an _English major_, not a doctor!"
dsk33593.uxa.cso.uiuc.edu
Morpheus Nosferatu
>In article <wilder.6...@mik.uky.edu> wil...@iti.org (jeff wilder) writes:
>>In <j5p...@lynx.unm.edu> saun...@triton.unm.edu (Richard Saunders CIRT) writes:
>>
>>
>>|And while I'm at it, how do you say "Geas?"
>>
>>I have no clue how it *should* be pronounced, but I say it /gay' uhs/.
>
>Well, "geas" is not currently in the Oxford English Dictionary, but I believe
>the pronunciation should be /ghee' uhs/.
Well, the pronunciation I've always heard and used is with the word rhyming
with "keys", though I shan't attempt a phenetic spelling.
Morpheus
+--------------------------------------+-------------------------------------+
| Dreamwalker, aka Morpheus Nosferatu, | Entropy, the second law of thermo- |
| The Dream Vampyre | dynamics. The more you keep putting |
| | things together, the more they keep |
| | falling apart, and I never heard a |
| stan...@mentor.cc.purdue.edu | truer word said. -- Doctor Who |
+--------------------------------------+-------------------------------------+
Michael Cornelius
>In <j5p...@lynx.unm.edu> saun...@triton.unm.edu (Richard Saunders CIRT) writes:
>|And while I'm at it, how do you say "Geas?"
>I have no clue how it *should* be pronounced, but I say it /gay' uhs/.
A geas is a taboo laid on a Celt type person (such as, you must always walk
clockwise around a house before entering it). I have always seen it pronounced
/gesh/.
--
===============================================================================
Michael Cornelius ...it was a game. Okay, we made it up,
m...@cse.unl.edu but it was a good game!
--Mr. Frost
Mark C Wallace
>>In <j5p...@lynx.unm.edu> saun...@triton.unm.edu (Richard Saunders CIRT) writes:
>>
>>|And while I'm at it, how do you say "Geas?"
According to all the celtic pronounciation guides I've read,
it should be geysh (Don't ask why, its celtic!). The word comes from
a celtic/Welsh custom of assigning certain prohibitions to an infant.
For example CuCulain (pronounced Coo Hoo Lin), has a geas that if ever
he were awakened from sleep, doom would result. Sure enough, it
happened. That day the Connaughtmen came and killed him, although it
took two kings to do it.
(I'm not sure what you have to pay to get that geas; my wife would
love it).
--
-----------------------
Mark C. Wallace
Noonaut
David Nalle
Draugr which means 'undead' or 'ghost'.
Probably the best way to pronounce Draugr in English is to use the Anglo-Saxon
soft 'G', and pronounce it Draur or Drawr. If you're from brooklyn and try
to pronounce the TSR version you probably pronounce it right.
The process by which the word Drow got into English (used primarily for undead,
NOT for elves) was in norse-originating fairytales. The reason TSR spells
it the way it does is the result of the same orthographic changes which took
the latin word Legis and turned it into the english word law. It's that soft
'G' again...
So confuse you players...make Drow into undead and pronounce it with an 'R' on
the end.
Dave
David Nalle
which should be pronounced 'Gay Boy'. So watch out when some raving Irish
Gealt comes after you carrying something he refers to as 'his gay boy'. Don't
laugh!
Dave
Ross Ridge
writes:
>And while I'm at it, how do you say "Geas?"
In article <wilder.6...@mik.uky.edu> wil...@iti.org (jeff wilder) writes:
>I have no clue how it *should* be pronounced, but I say it /gay' uhs/.
In article <1992Jan24....@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> dsk3...@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu
(Cricket ) writes:
>>Well, "geas" is not currently in the Oxford English Dictionary, but I believe
>>the pronunciation should be /ghee' uhs/.
In article <32...@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> stan...@mentor.cc.purdue.edu
(Morpheus Nosferatu) writes:
>Well, the pronunciation I've always heard and used is with the word rhyming
>with "keys", though I shan't attempt a phenetic spelling.
In the article "Ay pronunseeAYshun gyd: An informal index of the right
thing to say" (Dragon #93), Frank Mentzer, in his own phonetic
notation, gives "drow" and "dro" for Drow and "geez" and "GEE-@s" for
Geas. The "@" represents "The narrow, back-of-throat A (as in 'fat')"
Ross Ridge
--
\\ //
[OO] -|-=============================+<>+============================-|- [OO]
\()\ | Ross Ridge ro...@zooid.guild.org The Great HTMU | /()/
\\ -|-=============================+<>+============================-|- //
as...@acad2.alaska.edu
> In <j5p...@lynx.unm.edu> saun...@triton.unm.edu (Richard Saunders CIRT) writes:
>
>
> |Forgive me, I'm just a human. And a male one at that. I always *assumed*
> |that "Drow" rhymes with "row" but then I heard someone say it in a way that
> |rhymes with "cow." Shocked and dismayed, I took a poll among those who I
> |know and the results were totally inconclusive.
>
> According to the guy who (supposedly) invented "Drow," it rhymes with cow. Oh,
> that "guy" is E. Gary Gygax.
AND according to Scandinavian myth.
>
> |And while I'm at it, how do you say "Geas?"
>
> I have no clue how it *should* be pronounced, but I say it /gay' uhs/.
>
My wiccan buddies say it's /jee' uhs/.
> --
> ================================================================================
> | Jeff W uk0...@ukpr.uky.edu | Meddle not in the affairs of cats, for they |
> | Wilder & wil...@mik.uky.edu | are subtle, and will piss on your cyberdeck. |
> ================================================================================
--- Scott
as...@acad2.alaska.edu
> In article <wilder.6...@mik.uky.edu> wil...@iti.org (jeff wilder) writes:
>>
>>According to the guy who (supposedly) invented "Drow," it rhymes with cow. Oh,
>>that "guy" is E. Gary Gygax.
>>
> Oh, I think invent is a bit much. To me it always seemed to be an
> alternative form of "dwerrow". Which is the plural of dwarf, in some
> archaic form.
>
> I always thought TSR got very confused with drow. Obviously "Dark Elf" is
> a translation of "Svartalf", but Svartalfheim was the home of dwarfs
> (dwerrows) in Norse myth. How they decided to stretch them out, shave
> their beards, and give them black skin and white hair, I never figured out.
> Better than what Disney did to them, I guess.
Hey! I like the Disney dwarves!!!
Hi-ho, hi-ho....
The only thing stupid are their names. I mean, come on! They're miners,
they have radical beards, they're snappy dressers (as all dwarves are *not!*),
and they like to sing while they work good 23-hour shifts!
So what if they live in a little hut in the forest and are friends with the
animals....
--- Scott
MSH...@psuvm.psu.edu
Velvetwing, King of Cave ELessonir
TROY DAWSON PAGE
'Drow' can be found in Dragon Magazine #93, in the article
entitled 'A Pronunseeayshun gid'. The phoenetics at the beginning of the
article give 2 versions of the 'o' sound :
'ou' = pronounced as in 'cow'
'o' = pronounced as in 'snow'
The entry for 'drow' says : drou or dro
(in other words, either is fine)
-Picky me.
Kent Jenkins
>With fear and respect.
You wish.
-Thenomain