7mo ago

Sigil pronunciation

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?

37 comments

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.
- 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”).
  
  Ahhhh! That is cool as hell, I never knew that!
  Been playing since the eighties, you'd think I would have picked that up lol.
  
  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.
  
  That makes sense. It is what they decided to name it according to the lore. Of course, anyone who decides that they don't like the pronunciation can pronounce it differently in their campaign world.

Geas is an interesting one. It's pronounced "gesh" but everyone I've played with pronounced it "geese"
- I've said Ghee-ass this entire time.
- I think it might be “gaysh”? but I’m happy to be corrected. I’d been pronouncing it “gay-us” until just recently 😂. Irish words are weird.
- What!?
  I've been saying "gi-ahs"…
- For me its gay-ass and I do not apologise
  
  "You have been targeted by a gay-ass spell, it compells you to go on a gay-ass quest"

As an Italian, I can attest that no one in my country knows how to pronounce Shillelagh correctly.
- I've always said "Sha-LAY-Lee"
  
  "Shil AY lee" is, I think, correct.

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.
- I also read a lot as a kid and to this day, I prefer it to video or audio-based content delivery. So I also mispronounce things, especially if they are not words that would come up in daily conversation.
  The "primer" thing is something I just learned from you, verified with Merriam-Webster, and I am not happy about it because a primer primes you to learn about the subject, so I always thought it was said like "prime" + "er"…