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Ok, this may seem silly but I'm curious of how to pronounce some names and words.

Flash Gitz? Or Flash Jitz?

Primark or Primarch?

Ab ah don?
Or
a
Ah bad in?

What other names are hard to pronounce or are pronounced wrong?

Flash Gitz ('git' is English slang)
Primark
Heard both for Abby!

What's "Git" mean?

It's not very offensive, and usually said in jest.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Git

Someone with too much money, and likes to 'flash it about' is a 'Flash Git'.
Someone who talks a lot of rubbish might get called a 'gobby git' by his mates.

Johnnytorrance wrote:
What's "Git" mean?

It's a mildly offensive term for someone who's just unpleasant. Not used much, to be honest.

'Ǎḇaddōn

I didn't even realise Primarch was ambiguous.

Anyone who pronounces Abadon like it rhymes with 'Aladdin' is bad and should feel bad.

How about Tzeentch, or Zoanthrope? I've heard Tuh-zeench, Zeench, Zinch, Zench, and others. Zoanthrope is usually either Zo-an-thrope or Zoan-thrope.

I've never heard anyone get confused by "Git", but I guess that's because I live in the UK. I suppose Primarch could be "Prime-arch", but I've never heard that either.

Lazzgun versus Laysgun. According to most people the former is correct and according to GW the latter is correct. I prefer the first since it doesn't sound as stupid.

Ah yes, the "laze" pronunciation. While it should be correct (with the root word being "laser", after all), it sounds bad. Besides, it's not actually a shortened name - a lascannon's actual name is "lascannon", not "laser cannon", even if that's obviously what the name is derived from. Normally I would push for technical correctness, but in this case I just can't.

EDIT: I've heard multiple instances of "Stranglehorn cannon" - from Tyranid players, no less! This isn't a pronunciation, it's just incorrect. It's "Stranglethorn", for those who don't know.

 Frozen Ocean wrote:
How about Tzeentch, or Zoanthrope? I've heard Tuh-zeench, Zeench, Zinch, Zench, and others. Zoanthrope is usually either Zo-an-thrope or Zoan-thrope.

I've never heard anyone get confused by "Git", but I guess that's because I live in the UK. I suppose Primarch could be "Prime-arch", but I've never heard that either.

Personally, I say Zeench, Zo-an-thrope, and actually Prime-arch is the only way I've ever heard it pronounced. I totally agree with you on lasguns too.

Prime-arch (as in archway) or Prime-ark, though? I say Zo-an-thrope too, but I'm fond of pronouncing the T in Tzeentch.

 Frozen Ocean wrote:
Prime-arch (as in archway) or Prime-ark, though? I say Zo-an-thrope too, but I'm fond of pronouncing the T in Tzeentch.

Ahh, yes Prime-ark. I thought you were implying that Prim-ark was the correct pronunciation, and that just sounds weird to me. I tried to pronounce the T when I first got into 40k but it just doesn't flow well for me.

i'm surprised nobody has asked about roboute guilliman (sp?). i've never even tried to say it out loud, but in my head i always hear it as 'gilliman'.
one that i believe people often get wrong is konrad curze's surname. i think it should be pronounced as 'kurtz'.
for tzeench, i say it with just a bit of an aborted t, and the rest as 'zee-ench', similar to the way a double i in a japanese name makes a two e sounds, back to back.

morpheuschild wrote:
i'm surprised nobody has asked about roboute guilliman (sp?). i've never even tried to say it out loud, but in my head i always hear it as 'gilliman'.
one that i believe people often get wrong is konrad curze's surname. i think it should be pronounced as 'kurtz'.
for tzeench, i say it with just a bit of an aborted t, and the rest as 'zee-ench', similar to the way a double i in a japanese name makes a two e sounds, back to back.

I heard Alan Merrett pronounce it Row-boo-tay Gee-oh-man, which is kinda how I assumed it sounded because it seemed french to me.

If it's derived from French you wouldn't pronounce the "tay."

Lieutenant = "Lef-tenant"

 calamarialldayerrday wrote:
If it's derived from French you wouldn't pronounce the "tay."

I know, that's why I said it was kinda how I assumed it was pronounced.

Let's see...

row-BOOT GIL-ee-man
ZEENT-ch (I originally pronounced it with a lengthened 'eh', but decided 'ee' made more sense, and I add a lengthened stop before the ch to pronounce the tch more fully)
PRY-mark
I use las and laze interchangeably

A few that I haven't seen mentioned yet:

Aquila: I prefer AHK-will-uh, but I recently began hanging out with a group that says uh-QUILL-uh
C'tan: likewise, I've always said k-TAHN, but they prefer se-TAN (as in suntan)
Arbites/Custodes: I've waffled on this a bit, initially saying AHR-bi-TESS/kus-TOH-dess, but switching to AHR-bi-TEEZ/kus-TOH-deez to match my pronunciation of Astartes

I pronounce Aquila as uh-kee-luh.

The big one in my game group is Tycho.

Everyone around here says it Tie-ko, but one guy insists on pronouncing it Tee-ko.

He insists it's because of Tycho Brahe, but we just call him full of it.

I pronounce Aquila as uh-kwil-uh. Which is the Latin pronunciation of the word.

Aquila is Latin for eagle, and is pronounced roughly "a-kee-la". I say "kuh-tan" for C'tan. Curze should be "curs" - there's no T to make it "kurtz".

"Roo-boot Gill-e-man". A shorter "Ro" sound makes it too much like "Robot". Of course, there's always "Rowboat Gillman", "Robot Girlman", and others. He definitely has the strangest name of all the Primarchs.

How about Commoragh? I suppose it should be pronounced like the Biblical city after which it is obviously named, but I'd prefer it weren't, if only in an attempt to divorce it from the silly naming as much as possible.

Actually, while I agree on the pronunciation, a 'ze' can invoke a 't' sound. I'm trying desperately to think of an example, but they all escape me right now.

 Frozen Ocean wrote:
Aquila is Latin for eagle, and is pronounced roughly "a-kee-la". I say "kuh-tan" for C'tan. Curze should be "curs" - there's no T to make it "kurtz".

"Roo-boot Gill-e-man". A shorter "Ro" sound makes it too much like "Robot". Of course, there's always "Rowboat Gillman", "Robot Girlman", and others. He definitely has the strangest name of all the Primarchs.

How about Commoragh? I suppose it should be pronounced like the Biblical city after which it is obviously named, but I'd prefer it weren't, if only in an attempt to divorce it from the silly naming as much as possible.

you're right, there's no t in curze, but the name's origin seems to support my theory.

I can understand some confusion with words that don't appear outside the game, but many of these are actual words or very close to actual words with already accepted pronunciations found in the dictionary. Some that are readily available on dictionary.com are:
Abaddon (uh-bad-un)
Zoanthropy (zoh-an-thruh-pee)
Aquila (uh-kwil-uh, ak-wuh-luh)
Primarch doesn't appear to be an existing word but I think it quite obviously uses the -arch suffix meaning chief/leader as in monarch or matriarch.

Let's see:
Row-boo Ghee-i-man
Laymen Russ
Lazzgun
Zench
Kah-more-ah
See-tan
Ah-kill-uh
Pry-mark
A-bah-don
Cuss-toads
Are-bites
Uh-star-teez

Ah-keel-uh makes me want to bite my fingers off.

I much prefer ah-quill-uh.

How about Ravenor? Do you pronounce the first part as in the bird raven, or as in the word ravenous? (I prefer the latter.)

How about Loken? I've heard low-ken and lock-en both.

I'd go for Ravenous for Ravenor as it's more "always hungry" versus a bird-like thing.

I also say "Prime-Ark." Never heard Prime-arch, is this a UK thing? I assume Primarch is derived from patriarch and matriarch, but of not having a gender specific tone.

Sell - a - steen or Sell - a - stein? (St. Celestine)

Jathom wrote:
The big one in my game group is Tycho.

Everyone around here says it Tie-ko, but one guy insists on pronouncing it Tee-ko.

He insists it's because of Tycho Brahe, but we just call him full of it.

Your friend is right.

I pronounce Aquila as uh-kwil-uh. Which is the Latin pronunciation of the word.

All pronunciation of Latin is received pronunciation, since no one has spoken it natively for so long. A lot of the modern pronunciations of Latin words bear no resemblance to their original versions. A couple of years ago, when Fallout: New Vegas came out, I wondered what was up with Caesar's Legion all pronouncing his name "kai-zahr." Turns out that's probably how it was pronounced back when Caesars were still a thing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 TheKbob wrote:
Sell - a - steen or Sell - a - stein? (St. Celestine)

se-LESS-teen. Although I won't deny that My Little Pony probably had something to do with my pronunciation.