Fond Memories: Pronunciation
Posted by 
iTZKooPA on Wednesday, April 22, 2009 - 45 Comments Tags: Pronunciation, Ulduar, blue posts, caydiem, fond memories, google search, hard to say words, how to pronounce, old forum posts
iTZKooPA on Wednesday, April 22, 2009 - 45 Comments Tags: Pronunciation, Ulduar, blue posts, caydiem, fond memories, google search, hard to say words, how to pronounce, old forum posts 
What does pronunciation have to do with a fond memory, let alone World of Warcraft? Allow me to paint you a (paint by numbers) picture. I was cleaning out my bookmarks a few weeks ago and I came across a thread I saved from 2005 entitled "How do you pronounce Scholomance?" Filled with glee and excitement, I clicked on the link to relive the joy that 2005 had brought me, but it was all for naught thanks to Blizzard and the forum pruning. Dejected but not broken, I tried a quick Google search and came across an archived version of the thread. It is difficult to read and it repeats itself for some reason, but now-retired CM Caydiem, and the other forum goers, deliver a bunch of win in the thread.I must hand it to the original poster though, that was a brave question to ask more than six months after the title was released. It was also a good one. Seeing as the game and its locations are largely made up via the MMORPG's various racial dialects, it can be quite difficult to discern the correct pronunciation. As the thread points out, sometimes Blizzard doesn't even know the "correct" phonetics to the words. There are a ton of phrases from World of Warcraft that I have heard mispronounced in various way. I'll admit that I just recently learned the correct pronunciation of Ulduar (Ull-doo-ar). Reaching further back there are common mistakes with the Draenei (DRAN-eye), their buddies the Naaru (na-ru), TBC's main city Shattrath, C'Thun (Kah-Thoon) and everyone's favorite goblin town of Gadgetzan (Gadget-zan). I was off on only two of those, drain-y and ul-der.
I honestly don't know the official pronunciation of Shattrath City. Personally, I have always said Shatt-wrath, but find a silent th, Shatt-ra, to be acceptable as well due to the draenei roots. You'd think that I would have learned from my guild's ventrilo, but how often do people say the whole location, rather than Shat? Perhaps my guildmates don't know the intended sound of the city either...
What commonly used locations and words do you hear murdered during your travels? At the same time, please state the perceived correct way to say the words in question. The thing that makes me chuckle the most is that English words like melee and buffet are botched to this day!
As for spelling misteakes, that is an entirely different discussion. All this talk of steaks and smorgasbords is making me hungry.
Reader Comments (45)
Fjord Fyord
I remember how my friend made fun of me on how I pronounced "Un'goro". UHN-gor-o
We had a full on discussion about
Scholomance as well. XD
(cut me off /sad)
shattrath... shat... wrath
I often hear "rejant" for reagent (correct pronunciation is ree-ey-juhnt)
To add to my prior post some people also say "re-gent"
My GFs toon is named Neryss (Ner-ees) and alot of people in vent call her (Neriss).
Also another friend has the name Scipio (Seepeeoh) but I end up hearing most people say (Skippy-o)
One of my friends was terrible with his pronunciation.
Shat-er-ah(Shat-trath, or Or-ee-gam-ah(Org-rim-mar) were two common ones which he still uses today. I have also heard Dal-air-ee-en(Dal-uh-ran).
sholazar basin i have no idea how to say it
My guild had a whole day on vent devoted to the correct pronunciation of Howling Fjord.
fuh-jord or fee-yord?
Even though the answer is obvious, it was still pretty hilarious.
Yay the perfect followup to the spelling nazi blog from yesterday!
To find the proper pronunciation of fjord find a Norwegian dictionary and look up the word. The word it self dates back to the Norse word fjǫrdr.. try to pronounce that! :)
The most terrible pronunciation I have ever heard must have been when my friend somehow imagined an extra "e" in Searing Gorge, so he pronounced it as Searing George.
I have Always said "Resto" like Restore, instead of how most people say it RESTo
I firstly enjoy how iTZKoopa did not say "if you do not say shattrath correctly i will hate you and not come to your tea party" and instead just said that he enjoys how there is confusion and ends with asking the comments to answer questions. And now for my own, "Gnomeregan: nome-re-gan or gome-re-gan" I believe it was Hobbs who first said gomeregan and it stuck with me whenever i say nomeregan (I literally say, i type Gnomeregan -withought the capital g sometimes)
to fix my ending there (I litterally say that, but i type Gnomeregan) and in case Heartbourne is here, hye duddee, howz u bean? Im goud, thx 4 asking : P
The words my guild pronounce wrong atm are melee(and they always have) they say meleé, and now when we are doing Ulduar ther is a bunch of words...like "sentinel".
Personally, I say Sk-all-o-mance for Scholomance. Also, in respone to one of Caydiem's pronunciations...I say Arathi as Air-a-thigh.
It repeats itself because it shows the posts he edited.
in the subject space it was *edited post*
where as the ones before it repeats itself doesnt
[=
did that help you figure out why it repeats itself?
alright have a good one projectlore crew!
The draenei have been the biggest point of pronunciation contention amongst my friends and I over the years. Drain-eye, Drain - ee, Drain - ay, etc. Other than that only minor things, the occasional screwing up of Zangar Marsh, that kinda thing.
This is the blog post Ive been waiting for.
I pronounce everything different.
Hearthstone
Draenei
Naxxrammas
Ulduar
Howling Fjord
Melee
Nomzz (which is kinda weird since its MY name)
The only thing I've heard messed up over the years is my name (can't say I blame them, though). I've heard some say it as "All-lee-uh", others "Uh-lay-yay", or even more who just give up and say "that shaman". :lol:
Correct pronunciation is "Uh-lay-uh", btw. ;)
here is my list of my top 5 words i pronounce..."Oddley"
5-Stratholme= Strat-home
4-Scholomance=Sh-colo-mins
3-Draenei-Dray-ah-nie
2-Shattrath=Shat-er-raith
1-Orgrimmar- Oh-grim-mor
yeah i know...i have a speach empediment.lol
first of all heartbourne if your reading this you could learn a thing or 2 pronounciation is just as important as spelling but he didnt make such a big deal of it and see not one hate post
now back to the subject their were a few words i prounced incorrectly one of the first were hearthstone i prounced it like heartstone but i soon learned after i asked a guy whear is your heart i prounced gam with a soft g i prounced tier like tire i a mstill not sure which is correct i here people call it both i just prounce it tier for about first 2 years that i been playing i prounced stealth like st-e-lth untill i saw the movie i still prounce it like that but now i usualy correct my self some times another word i pronounced wrong for very long is kalimdor i pronounced it like kalimindor which i allso still prounce because i am use to it i allso prounced scholo and and strat wrong but it been to long since i used the full word cant even renember how i prounced it naja was allso a confussing word i prounced naja like ninja
After checking the Merriam-Webster dictionary website, I found out that melee can be pronounced in 2 ways.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/melee
I tend to pronounce it as it's prounounced in Super Smash Bros. Melee (may-lay)
My mage (before I changed his name to Leopluradon) had the name Elyon. Most people said El-yawn, but it is pronounced El-ee-on. It's Hebrew for All-Sufficient One, talking about God. But then I decided I had no right whatsoever to name my character after God so I changed it and gave God his due respect.