Oneiromancer
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I'm pretty sure this hasn't been discussed before, at least in a poll form. My fiancee always calls it "That DROD game" but I've always just spelled it out (at least in my head...I don't know if I've ever had a conversation about it). How about you?

Game on,

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agaricus5
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To me, even when I talk about it, I do generally say "DROD". Only rarely do I call it by its full title, and this usually only happens when I'm explaining what it is to people.

[Edited by agaricus5 on 10-06-2003 at 09:36 PM GMT: Spelling error]

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eytanz
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Oops - I say DROD, but voted for spelling it out by mistake.


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Schik
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I deleted your vote - you can re-vote.

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zex20913
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So far I'm the only one calling it D-ROD. I feel lonely.

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bradwall
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I always thought of it as DROD. I would like to see what Erik calls it. I guess that I, at times, also call it Deadly Rooms of Death... but, mostly DROD.

Schik
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Oddly enough, I call it Deadly Rooms OD.

But seriously. It's one word. DROD.



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Tscott
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When I read DROD, it sounds like one word in my head and rhymes with "Dude".

I've never used 'DROD' in an actual conversation. When the game does come up in conversation I always use the full name.

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mrimer
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I've been blessed to converse with the oracle: Erik calls it "DROD" -- I've heard him myself. Just like he pronounces 'Neather so that it rhymes with either. (Incidentally, while we're on pronunciation, I noticed a recent new member with the name "JROD". I realized it's spoken in exactly the same way. Hmm...Jnarly Rooms of Death?)

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ClaytonW
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I always pronounced it "Jrahd" while my girlfriend pronounces it "Drahd." And I've always pronounced the 'Neather like "feather."

Mattcrampy
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Just like it's spelled.

Heh.

I pronounce it as one word, DROD, but haven't really worked out how 'Neather's supposed to be said, so it usually comes out as either rhyming with 'leather' or something like 'kneether'.

Something tells me the second one is similar to Erik's.

Matt

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mrimer
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Oh, man. I realized that 'either' is also pronounced a couple of different ways. Sorry about that. Let me be more clear: DROD is pronounced drawed and 'Neather like you said, Kneether. With the 'k' spoken... Hah! Just kidding.

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Oneiromancer
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I always thought pronouncing the 'Neather as "kneether" was pretty obvious, since he is beneath the ground. Pronouncing it as if he were from the "nether" regions would only make sense if it didn't have the letter a in there.

This discussion about the 'Neather sounds familiar though...I think we talked about his pronunciation before. Or maybe just what his name meant.

Game on,

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ErikH2000
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Okay, this should brutally end all speculation:

It is pronounced nee-ther with an accent on the first syllable. 'Neather is short for "beneather".

-Erik

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Oneiromancer wrote:
This discussion about the 'Neather sounds familiar though...I think we talked about his pronunciation before. Or maybe just what his name meant.

We did, when we were decoding Sihmpuhl Englihsh. In the text written by Bombus in Hallholder Bombus Defeats the Eyeball Pudding, you'll find the word "'neathling". Since Sihmpuhl Englihsh specifies the length of vowels, it can be seen that this word is pronounced "kneethling". So "'Neather" would be pronounced in the same way.

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krammer
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Pronounced like drawed? Well, maybe - but for me it's just drod, with a short o sound. No aw or ah sounds at all.

I never thought of calling it dee-arr-oh-dee before, it seems really weird to me. Nope, DROD is DROD I'm afraid. And I still want to call him the Never. Neether just sounds wrong.

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Since I absolutely DESPISE it when people pronounce acronyms as though they were one word (the primary reason being that they're NOT one word), I've pronounced it dee-ar-oh-dee since the day I first saw it.

Worst culprit for acronym-mangling: MIDI. Just the thought of someone saying "midee" raises my hackles. Grrrr.

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Tscott
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Sokko wrote:
Since I absolutely DESPISE it when people pronounce acronyms as though they were one word (the primary reason being that they're NOT one word), I've pronounced it dee-ar-oh-dee since the day I first saw it.

Worst culprit for acronym-mangling: MIDI. Just the thought of someone saying "midee" raises my hackles. Grrrr.

Hmmm, I'd hate to hear you read the following out loud, you'd take forever:

NASA NATO SCUBA LASER RADAR SONAR NASDAQ HUD COBOL BASIC FORTRAN FUBAR SNAFU SARS AIDS LAN WAN BIOS NASCAR NAFTA DEFCON MADD SADD PETA INTERPOL UNIX LINUX AWOL



[Edited by Tscott on 10-08-2003 at 01:00 AM]

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eytanz
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ErikH2000 wrote:
Okay, this should brutally end all speculation:

It is pronounced nee-ther with an accent on the first syllable. 'Neather is short for "beneather".

-Erik

Is it pronounced with a voiced th as in the words "either" or "that", or a voiceless one as in the words "beneath" or "think"?

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ErikH2000
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eytanz wrote:
Is it pronounced with a voiced th as in the words "either" or "that", or a voiceless one as in the words "beneath" or "think"?

The latter, to be consistent with "beneath", which the name is based on.

-Erik

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eytanz
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That's how I've been pronouncing it. But then I don't see how it could possibly rhyme with "either" - as far as I can tell, all the variation on pronunciation of that word lies in the vowels, not the consonants; is there really a dialect of English where "either" and "ether" are homophones?

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eytanz
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Tscott wrote:

Sokko wrote:
Since I absolutely DESPISE it when people pronounce acronyms as though they were one word (the primary reason being that they're NOT one word), I've pronounced it dee-ar-oh-dee since the day I first saw it.

Worst culprit for acronym-mangling: MIDI. Just the thought of someone saying "midee" raises my hackles. Grrrr.

Hmmm, I'd hate to hear you read the following out loud, you'd take forever:

NASA NATO SCUBA LASER RADAR SONAR NASDAQ HUD COBOL BASIC FORTRAN FUBAR SNAFU SARS AIDS LAN WAN BIOS NASCAR NAFTA DEFCON MADD SADD PETA INTERPOL UNIX LINUX AWOL



[Edited by Tscott on 10-08-2003 at 01:00 AM]

BASIC isn't really an acronym - it was first named Basic, and the acronym was retro-fitted to it later. Also, I'm curious how Sokko pronounced the following string - MODEM (which technically is an abbreviation, but it's still more than one word).

I have to admit, Sokko's position seems irredeemably silly to me. Acronyms are, by very their nature, names. Everything that has one is some sort of entity. Names are single words. The fact that these names are chosen because their letters are a mnemonic for a longer phrase does not make them more than one word. Musical Instrument Digital Interface is more than one word. MIDI is one word; not matter how you pronounce it.

[Edited by eytanz on 10-08-2003 at 04:58 AM]

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ErikH2000
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eytanz wrote:
That's how I've been pronouncing it. But then I don't see how it could possibly rhyme with "either" - as far as I can tell, all the variation on pronunciation of that word lies in the vowels, not the consonants; is there really a dialect of English where "either" and "ether" are homophones?

Most people in the States pronounce "either" with a long E, although it is common to hear it with a long I also, especially when someone is trying to sound proper.

-Erik

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Oneiromancer
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I think Eytan is referring to the "th" sound...whether you say it short as in "either" or kind of elongate it, or hiss it, as in "ether". Technically, "beneath" ends in a more elongated "th" sound, but I think most of us non-linguistics people (including me) don't tend to think about things like that, and go for the quickest answer, which is that "'Neather" more or less rhymes with "either" although to be perfectly correct it does not.

Game on,

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ClaytonW
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Sokko wrote:
Since I absolutely DESPISE it when people pronounce acronyms as though they were one word (the primary reason being that they're NOT one word), I've pronounced it dee-ar-oh-dee since the day I first saw it.

Worst culprit for acronym-mangling: MIDI. Just the thought of someone saying "midee" raises my hackles. Grrrr.

Not to pick you apart or anything, allow me to point out this dictionary entry:

Main Entry: ac·ro·nym
Pronunciation: 'a-kr&-"nim
Function: noun
Etymology: acr- + -onym
Date: 1943
: a word (as NATO, radar, or snafu) formed from the initial letter or letters of each of the successive parts or major parts of a compound term

Basically that means (at least as I've always understood it, I could be wrong) that it's only an acronym if it can, and commonly is, pronounced as a word. SCUBA (Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus) is an acronym because it is commonly said like a word: Skoo-bah. AOIPS (Atmospheric and Oceanographic Information Processing System) is not an acronym because it can't be pronounced as a word... well, it can, but it isn't. What would you say, Ay-oyps?

Mattcrampy
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That's correct - there's another word for acronyms that are meant to spelled out (like GPF). Can't for the life of me remember what it is, though.

Matt

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eytanz
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Oneiromancer wrote:
I think Eytan is referring to the "th" sound...whether you say it short as in "either" or kind of elongate it, or hiss it, as in "ether". Technically, "beneath" ends in a more elongated "th" sound, but I think most of us non-linguistics people (including me) don't tend to think about things like that, and go for the quickest answer, which is that "'Neather" more or less rhymes with "either" although to be perfectly correct it does not.

Game on,

The technical difference, by the way, is whether your vocal cords are active or not during the production of the sound. May it's because there are very few words in English you can tell apart by the sound difference between the two th's that you have trouble thinking of what it is. But it's the same difference as between an S and a Z, or between a P and a B, or a G and a K.

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agaricus5
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Tscott wrote:

Sokko wrote:
Since I absolutely DESPISE it when people pronounce acronyms as though they were one word (the primary reason being that they're NOT one word), I've pronounced it dee-ar-oh-dee since the day I first saw it.

Worst culprit for acronym-mangling: MIDI. Just the thought of someone saying "midee" raises my hackles. Grrrr.

Hmmm, I'd hate to hear you read the following out loud, you'd take forever:

NASA NATO SCUBA LASER RADAR SONAR NASDAQ HUD COBOL BASIC FORTRAN FUBAR SNAFU SARS AIDS LAN WAN BIOS NASCAR NAFTA DEFCON MADD SADD PETA INTERPOL UNIX LINUX AWOL



[Edited by Tscott on 10-08-2003 at 01:00 AM]

Do you pronounce "Laser", "Radar" or "Sonar" as a set of letters then, or as one word? As Tscott says, they are acronyms that have been slowly adopted into the English language as proper words, so it would be interesting to see what you think of them. When you say "I absolutely DESPISE it when people pronounce acronyms as though they were one word...", did you mean acronyms that have only been recently made up and not yet incorporated into the language as a proper word?

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Watcher
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Mattcrampy wrote:
That's correct - there's another word for acronyms that are meant to spelled out (like GPF). Can't for the life of me remember what it is, though.

Matt

Abbreviation, isn't it?

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mrimer
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Take CDROM, for example. It's said as one word inasmuch as it sounds good. The letters are said separately if needed vowels to make it sound good are lacking.

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Gandalf? Yes... That's what they used to call me.
Gandalf the Grey. That was my name.
I am Gandalf the White.
And I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.