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[cayvie]

We played the Mage: the Ascension rpg for about five years

my condolences

[Axxle]

what about Laboratory?

I pronounce it La-BOR-ah-TOR-ee because it's fun to say

I just checked youtube forever and couldn't find a "Dee-dee get out of my La-BOR-ah-TOR-ee!" clip.  Made me very sad.

[SwitchedFromStarcraft]

Everyone else doing it is doing so to sound pretentious.

Nobody tries to sound pretentious. Lots of people try for something else and land on pretentious, though.

I most strenuously disagree.

[AdamH]

Kirian, AJD, Razzishi - I develop software for a living. I got terrible grades in my English classes. I arguably know more about Spanish grammar than English. I mean, I can't even spell "Pronounciations" [sic]. I read what you wrote, but I'll be honest, I didn't really understand a lot of it. If perhaps there is something that I haven't gotten from your words that you intended me to get, maybe you could re-explain it to me in little words (one or two syllables is preferable, you see what Pronounciations [sic] did to me...) so that simple people like myself who never have to interact with human beings can learn from you as well.

I updated my initial post with what looks like the consensus for each word that's been talked about. If anyone disagrees, please speak up. I also added what appear to still be open questions. The single-card-plural-name thing could probably be answered by Isotropic pretty easily, but I won't be able to check until late tonight at the earliest.

To be clear once again, I intended the "Hwarf" comment to be a joke. If this is actually a serious contention (I can't tell, TBH; too many big words :-P) then again, please correct me.

...but to my credit, that big P word has five syllables, and I nailed four of them. That's an 80%, which would usually be the highest grade in any engineering course, and given the curve, would easily be an A+. I am satisfied with my work.

[Donald X.]

"In all directions lie fiefs, freeholds, and feodums." Feodum has been anglicized. The plural is now feodums. I'm the only one who's been using the word, and that's what I use, and well usage is all that counts in the end.

Compare dominion. That comes from Latin too, but we don't say "two dominium." And it's two condominiums, not two condominia. That's just the way it goes.

Style guides will tell you to just slap -s or -es onto proper nouns to get the plural. It really is Ruinses. Filthy rotten ruinses. We hates them! In practice Magic players routinely talk about having Cities of Brass and Birds of Paradise and so forth, adopting the plural that the thing would have if only it weren't proper. I think that's the wave of the future, but if you are timid you can dodge it for the moment by saying two copies of Smugglers and so on.

[aaron0013]

In reply to the above post I'm pretty sure that we have settled on GOAL-UM, MOUNT-UH-BANK, and FAY-UH-DUM.

@Qvist: Personally, I just say that I'm playing another nobles, or I have two nobles. Players can always understand what I'm saying, and I think it is a lot less confusing than other methods.

[AJD]

Just to clarify, how do you pronounce Mountebank? I never saw the word before Dominion, and our play group has been saying "mount'i'bank".

The first syllable is like Mount, as in Mount Everest. The last syllable is like Bank, as in Bank of America. The middle syllable is a schwa.

We played the Mage: the Ascension rpg for about five years before a new player pointed out we were saying Arete wrong. (we were saying areet, rather than airt-ay, which was kind of embarassing)

According to the dictionaries I checked just now, "arete" (in English) is pronounced either like "irate" but with a schwa instead of the I (American Heritage Dictionary and Merriam-Webster), or like "barrette" without the B (OED).

[AJD]

To be clear once again, I intended the "Hwarf" comment to be a joke. If this is actually a serious contention (I can't tell, TBH; too many big words :-P) then again, please correct me.

The point is just the following: The question "Is wharf pronounced like Worf or like 'hworf'?" doesn't have a correct answer that applies to all English-speaking people. If you speak one of the dialects of English in which "w" and "wh" have systematically different pronunciations, wharf has "wh", not "w"; and describing it as being pronounced like Worf is just wrong. If you speak one of the dialects of English in which "w" and "wh" are systematically pronounced the same, then yes of course wharf is pronounced like Worf.

[AdamH]

So my goal is to include all acceptable pronunciations (see, I did it right that time without even copy/pasting!)

If Worf and Hworf are both acceptable then they are both acceptable

If GAH-lum is a different word (which is IS! >:O) then I don't want to include it

If MONT-uh-bonk is a form of "Engrish" then I don't want to include it, but if it's someone with a French accent saying the word and it's acceptable, then cool. My inclination is towards the first, but I'm not sure.

As far as the plurals, I suppose it makes sense to smack an "-es" on the end, though I don't know that I'd ever actually say the word "Smugglerses," due in part to the fact that I'd have to buy two of them for it to even come up. But I'm pretty sure I'd have noticed that word on Iso...

It raises a question to me, though: is "Smugglers" still acceptable when talking about more than one Smugglers? A similar question for all of those other words.

[AJD]

So my goal is to include all acceptable pronunciations (see, I did it right that time without even copy/pasting!)

If Worf and Hworf are both acceptable then they are both acceptable

This way madness lies, though. You really don't want to have to account for and specify all of the systematic dialect differences that can affect the pronunciation of a given word. Is wharf pronounced like whawf? Well, yes if you speak a dialect of English in which "r" is systematically deleted before a consonant and therefore tort and taut are pronounced the same; no otherwise (and both are possible if you speak a dialect in which such deletion is optional). Is it pronounced like wore plus an F? Well, yes if you speak a dialect where words like hoarse and horse are pronounced the same (and which and witch are also pronounced the same); no otherwise. The possibilities really multiply.

But on the other hand, if you just describe the pronunciation of wharf in simple terms—
WH as in which
AR as in war
F as in almost any word that has an F in it
—there's no ambiguity, and no more than one correct pronunciation at this level of abstraction... which is the correct description.

[mameluke]

I had the plural problem with "Ironworks" the other day IRL. I usually settle for the null plural ("... with a Talisman in play, I gain two Ironworks") but after a few drink it somehow came out as "Ironsworks", possibly on analogy with passersby or some such.

[werothegreat]

Okay, I am all for saying Ruinses and Ratses.  But there is no way I'm saying "Goonses" or "Nobleses."  I'm buying two Nobles and that's final.

[KingsSkort]

"In all directions lie fiefs, freeholds, and feodums." Feodum has been anglicized. The plural is now feodums. I'm the only one who's been using the word, and that's what I use, and well usage is all that counts in the end.

Compare dominion. That comes from Latin too, but we don't say "two dominium." And it's two condominiums, not two condominia. That's just the way it goes.

Style guides will tell you to just slap -s or -es onto proper nouns to get the plural. It really is Ruinses. Filthy rotten ruinses. We hates them! In practice Magic players routinely talk about having Cities of Brass and Birds of Paradise and so forth, adopting the plural that the thing would have if only it weren't proper. I think that's the wave of the future, but if you are timid you can dodge it for the moment by saying two copies of Smugglers and so on.

Style guides will also tell you to avoid saying things that sound weird or unnatural. Ruinses or Smugglerses (!!) are just awful. "He was dealing out two Ruins a turn!" or "I got a bunch of Smugglers cause I love swinginess and terminal collision." are way better.

I can't tell if you're really suggesting that the correct plural of City of Brass is City of Brasses, but you shouldn't be.

[Kirian]

Compare dominion. That comes from Latin too, but we don't say "two dominium." And it's two condominiums, not two condominia. That's just the way it goes.

Except that Dominion itself has, as you suggest, been Anglicized (or more properly Francophonized [note: probably not a real word]).  The -on ending definitely isn't Latin.

Style guides will tell you to just slap -s or -es onto proper nouns to get the plural. It really is Ruinses. Filthy rotten ruinses.

Except that the names of the cards aren't necessarily proper nouns, are they?  The plural of "ruins" in the sense being used on the cards certainly is "ruins."

In practice Magic players routinely talk about having Cities of Brass and Birds of Paradise and so forth, adopting the plural that the thing would have if only it weren't proper.

I think most people would adopt that; the pluralization obviously goes on the noun, proper or not.

[werothegreat]

Compare dominion. That comes from Latin too, but we don't say "two dominium." And it's two condominiums, not two condominia. That's just the way it goes.

Except that Dominion itself has, as you suggest, been Anglicized (or more properly Francophonized [note: probably not a real word]).  The -on ending definitely isn't Latin.

Frenchified.

[Kuildeous]

Compare dominion. That comes from Latin too, but we don't say "two dominium." And it's two condominiums, not two condominia. That's just the way it goes.

Except that Dominion itself has, as you suggest, been Anglicized (or more properly Francophonized [note: probably not a real word]).  The -on ending definitely isn't Latin.

Frenchified.

Mmm, French-fried.

[AdamH]

But on the other hand, if you just describe the pronunciation of wharf in simple terms—
WH as in which
AR as in war
F as in almost any word that has an F in it
—there's no ambiguity, and no more than one correct pronunciation at this level of abstraction... which is the correct description.

I'll play the part of the guy that doesn't know anything about language. I suppose I'd be pretty good at doing that, since I'm a great actor.

I thought that dictionaries had special symbols for all of those things you described. Half of them were the same as the letters themselves, and the other half were goofy-lookin' things like an upside-down 'e' (which I know is called a schwa and represents the "uh" sound, but that's the only one I actually know). Would I be mistaken if I were to say that it's feasible to create some list of acceptable pronunciations (HA!) that could vary with different dialects? Gosh, I don't even know what I dialect is! I don't want this thing to get really complicated, because if it does, I'll just have to write a computer program about it, and nobody here wants that...

It appears I was hasty in assuming the debate over the weird plural names was over because Donald had chimed in. Call me star-struck I guess. (ZOMG THE CREATOR OF DOMINION REPLIED TO MY POST!!! *faints*)

[AJD]

But on the other hand, if you just describe the pronunciation of wharf in simple terms—
WH as in which
AR as in war
F as in almost any word that has an F in it
—there's no ambiguity, and no more than one correct pronunciation at this level of abstraction... which is the correct description.

I'll play the part of the guy that doesn't know anything about language. I suppose I'd be pretty good at doing that, since I'm a great actor.

I thought that dictionaries had special symbols for all of those things you described. Half of them were the same as the letters themselves, and the other half were goofy-lookin' things like an upside-down 'e' (which I know is called a schwa and represents the "uh" sound, but that's the only one I actually know). Would I be mistaken if I were to say that it's feasible to create some list of acceptable pronunciations (HA!) that could vary with different dialects?

I mean, not at all mistaken... but the real answer is, you know, except for "Feodum" all the Dominion card names are English words, and you can look up the pronunciation of them in a dictionary, where they'll be transcribed—hopefully—in a way that should be mappable to the correct pronunciation in any more-or-less standard dialect.

[Asklepios]

According to the dictionaries I checked just now, "arete" (in English) is pronounced either like "irate" but with a schwa instead of the I (American Heritage Dictionary and Merriam-Webster), or like "barrette" without the B (OED).

So even after being corrected by a pronunciation pedant all those years ago I'm STILL pronouncing it wrong?

Hah!

[XnFM]

I can't tell if you're really suggesting that the correct plural of City of Brass is City of Brasses, but you shouldn't be.

Now I'm neither an English major, nor a linguist, but I'm pretty sure it is, technically, correct.

If you were to refer to an array of ingots of different copper/zinc alloys, wouldn't you refer to them collectively as "brasses"? I would suggest that the technically correct plural of "City of Brass" is "City of Brasses," however because it sounds unnatural sentence constructions requiring it should be avoided.

"Look at all those copies of City of Brass."
"Look at all the City of Brasses."

Both of the above are correct, however the former is more natural and flows better and thus is the preferred construction.

[eHalcyon]

I can't tell if you're really suggesting that the correct plural of City of Brass is City of Brasses, but you shouldn't be.

Now I'm neither an English major, nor a linguist, but I'm pretty sure it is, technically, correct.

If you were to refer to an array of ingots of different copper/zinc alloys, wouldn't you refer to them collectively as "brasses"? I would suggest that the technically correct plural of "City of Brass" is "City of Brasses," however because it sounds unnatural sentence constructions requiring it should be avoided.

"Look at all those copies of City of Brass."
"Look at all the City of Brasses."

Both of the above are correct, however the former is more natural and flows better and thus is the preferred construction.

"City of Brasses" and "Cities of Brass" have rather different meanings.

But if it's a reference to the MTG card, I think the easy way would be "City of Brass cards".

[XnFM]

I can't tell if you're really suggesting that the correct plural of City of Brass is City of Brasses, but you shouldn't be.

Now I'm neither an English major, nor a linguist, but I'm pretty sure it is, technically, correct.

If you were to refer to an array of ingots of different copper/zinc alloys, wouldn't you refer to them collectively as "brasses"? I would suggest that the technically correct plural of "City of Brass" is "City of Brasses," however because it sounds unnatural sentence constructions requiring it should be avoided.

"Look at all those copies of City of Brass."
"Look at all the City of Brasses."

Both of the above are correct, however the former is more natural and flows better and thus is the preferred construction.

"City of Brasses" and "Cities of Brass" have rather different meanings.

But if it's a reference to the MTG card, I think the easy way would be "City of Brass cards".

I think you mean "city of brasses" and "cities of brass," have rather different meanings. "City of Brass" is a proper name, and my understanding is that the actual meaning of the English when you pluralize it is irrelevant.

[eHalcyon]

I can't tell if you're really suggesting that the correct plural of City of Brass is City of Brasses, but you shouldn't be.

Now I'm neither an English major, nor a linguist, but I'm pretty sure it is, technically, correct.

If you were to refer to an array of ingots of different copper/zinc alloys, wouldn't you refer to them collectively as "brasses"? I would suggest that the technically correct plural of "City of Brass" is "City of Brasses," however because it sounds unnatural sentence constructions requiring it should be avoided.

"Look at all those copies of City of Brass."
"Look at all the City of Brasses."

Both of the above are correct, however the former is more natural and flows better and thus is the preferred construction.

"City of Brasses" and "Cities of Brass" have rather different meanings.

But if it's a reference to the MTG card, I think the easy way would be "City of Brass cards".

I think you mean "city of brasses" and "cities of brass," have rather different meanings. "City of Brass" is a proper name, and my understanding is that the actual meaning of the English when you pluralize it is irrelevant.

touche.

[theory]

I say DOOK-ee.  Always have, always will.  I mean, a DOOK-ee is run by a DOOK, so why would I call it a DUTCH-ee?  I don't call it a KONG-dom. 

Or, you're just mispronouncing Duke.  Quack quack.

[Voltgloss]

My table calls Duchies "douches."  Especially when having to buy one with $7 during the endgame.

No, they don't call Duchesses "douchesses," but I suspect it's only a matter of time.

And for context:  my table consists of me, my wife, and my mother.  Not sure if that makes things more or less well explained.