For many years I’ve been pronouncing Sigil as Sij-ill, like the word sigil. Recently I read something in a post from WotC saying that it is pronounced sig-ill (hard G). This just sounded weird to me, so I am continuing to say it with a J sound. You know, like in GIF 😏

Anyway, are there any other names of things in D&D that made you go “huh?” when you heard the official pronunciation?

  • bionicjoey@lemmy.ca
    1·
    4 months ago

    Geas is an interesting one. It’s pronounced “gesh” but everyone I’ve played with pronounced it “geese”

  • southsamurai@sh.itjust.works
    1·
    4 months ago

    No clue where they’re pulling that pronunciation from, but it isn’t the standard, so I kinda suspect they pulled it from the same place you pull the rubber band your dog swallowed.

    • MyTurtleSwimsUpsideDown@fedia.io
      2·
      4 months ago

      Capitalized “Sigil” (sig-əl) in this context is a made up place-name from D&D lore. It is a homograph to the actual English word “sigil” (sij-əl) They are pronounced differently for the same reason I can name my storm barbarian “Barnacles” (rhymes with “Hercules”).

      • Elevator7009@kbin.run
        0·
        4 months ago

        That’s clever. Given the spoken nature of a Dungeons & Dragons session, a DM could just meme by naming a character literally the English word “barnacles” but by pronouncing it as “barn” + “uh” + “cleese” (to rhyme with “please”) I imagine people would not think of that word.

  • invertedspear@lemm.ee
    1·
    4 months ago

    I’ve only heard it pronounced with a hard g when listening to critical role, and the person that pronounced it that way (more like giggle but starting with an s) got razzed for it.

    Listening to audio books I hear a lot of words that make me cringe or wonder if I’ve been wrong all these years, after all these are professional voice actors that presumably have directors or producers that correct them when they’re wrong, right?

    Also I read a lot as a kid, And didn’t watch or listen to a lot of media, so I mispronounce things all the time. My favorite is primer as in a small introduction to a topic. This has always been prime-ur in my mind, makes sense as that is the term for the small charge that ignites the big charge in a bullet. The word is actually pronounced primm-er.

    D&D is likely written by people who have similarly focused on the written, not spoken word. Don’t trust any of their pronunciations.

        • bizarroland@fedia.io
          2·
          4 months ago

          I am thoroughly convinced that the people who choose the soft G are people who are intentionally contrarian.

          “But the originator of the word says it’s a soft G”

          Yeah, and, the originator of the word is wrong.

          Hard G.