January 15th, 2009: Today's comic touches on a subject all D&D players run into eventually in their lifetime. Yes, pronunciations.
I have found the classic article from Dragon Magazine #93(Jan 85); Ay PronunseeAYshun gyd: An informal index of the right
things to say by Frank Mentzer, to be the best source to use in such discussion. It's a pretty weighty list of
1st Edition era AD&D and Greyhawk proper names. If you can find a copy of that issue or a comparable list online, it
would be worth your time to read. Even for someone like me who read that issue when it first came out,
I was surprised at some of the Greyhawk words I to this day still mispronunce, like Iuz. I say EYE-ooze. Mentzer says
it is yooz or EE-uz. Another gem is Flanaess. Mortellan says FLAN-ay-ess, Mentzer says
fla-NES. Oh and then there's Oerth. Mort says Orth, Mentzer says comically OYth (or rarely URth or AYRth).
Speaking of proper pronunciations, the last time we
saw those clever Thar-IZ-dun cultists, they got away with none other than the CO-dex of the IN-fuh-nit Playnes!
I wonder what enunciative misadventures they will get into this time?
p.s. W.o.G fan manus_nigrum, over at canonfire.com PMed me a few excellent ideas to use for the cultists
several months ago. I hope your wait was worth it, thanks!
Enjoy!
-mortellan
