Nyal Williams wrote:
Once, and forever. The letter 'o' in Grob is pronounced
like Boat and not like Bob. The vowel sound in Bob
cannot be made in German using the letter 'o.' It
does not exist. To make that sound they would have
to write Bab or Bahb.

well, not exactly... if you want to get into linguistic anorak
discussions, the English "boat" is pronounced more like a diphthong, a
combination of o and u - whereas the German Grob (or Boot as in the film
"Das Boot") is a flat, long "o" sound - maybe a bit like a Geordie "o"? :-)

The "o" sound as in "Bob" does exist in German (at least if you think of
the British pronunciation of Bob). It's just a plain short "o".

And finally, yes, Grob means something like rough, coarse - which is why
some people say Grob gliders are grob. Those would be the people who
also call them Harzklumpen, i.e. lumps of resin!

(which leads to the question whether the Harz mountains are really the
Resin mountains...)

Claudia (professional linguistic anorak)