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Eyrie Productions, Unlimited
Gryphon
Charter Member
18376 posts |
Mar-09-14, 01:02 PM (EST) |
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"Use Your Words"
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Apparently I'm making up vocabulary in my sleep now. In my bedside notebook today I find the following notation from last night: 4 3/9/14 A "blint" is a short, fierce sandstorm in which visibility drops to zero. Term originated w/ Human colonists on Mars in 21st century.
Not to be confused w/ the 10-day ones. Those are caparnawallahs. (Shepard knows this.) The significance of the last point, in particular, eludes waking me. Also note that sleeping me has a hard time remembering what month it is, and thinks "human" is a proper noun. --G. -><- Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/ zgryphon at that email service Google has Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam. |
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Mercutio
Member since May-26-13
808 posts |
Mar-09-14, 01:44 PM (EST) |
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1. "RE: Use Your Words"
In response to message #0
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>and thinks "human" is a proper noun. Not surprising; I blame leakage from other media sources. I mean, just for example, if we're going by how the word is used in both the in and out of game literature, "Prothean" is apparently a proper noun; it's almost always capitalized, at least. I see "Klingon" and "Romulan" capitalized a lot in Star Trek sources as well, indicating proper noun status when it isn't being used as one. For that matter, "Gamilon" is capitalized more than once by the production team here in UF, even in contexts where it clearly isn't being used as a proper noun. I can find a couple examples of that just in a cursory check of S1M1. -Merc Keep Rat |
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Gryphon
Charter Member
18376 posts |
Mar-09-14, 02:14 PM (EST) |
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2. "RE: Use Your Words"
In response to message #1
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LAST EDITED ON Mar-09-14 AT 02:18 PM (EDT) >>and thinks "human" is a proper noun. > >Not surprising; I blame leakage from other media sources. I mean, just >for example, if we're going by how the word is used in both the in and >out of game literature, "Prothean" is apparently a proper noun; it's >almost always capitalized, at least. > >I see "Klingon" and "Romulan" capitalized a lot in Star Trek >sources as well, indicating proper noun status when it isn't being >used as one. > >For that matter, "Gamilon" is capitalized more than once by the >production team here in UF, even in contexts where it clearly isn't >being used as a proper noun. I can find a couple examples of that just >in a cursory check of S1M1. I know I've explained this before, but: some species in UF are called by where they come from, others by the name their species had for itself before it understood that there were others. As a general thing, the former are capitalized, the latter are not. Thus, humans (from Earth and elsewhere), asari (from Thessia), etc., but Romulans (from Romulus), Gamilons (from Gamilon), and so forth. This is presumably why "Protheans" is capitalized - it's not technically the name of their species, per se, but the academic label for the civilization they were part of. It's like referring to particular ancient peoples of Earth as Minoans or what have you. (As an aside, this means that if Diane Duane's Romulan word for Romulans is in fact a Romulan word for Romulans in the UF universe, it'd be rihannsu, not capitalized, though that does not accord with her usage. Similarly, Klingons are kind of an odd case because I'm sure the original assumption was that they were from a planet with that name or something close to it - virtually every other sapient species in Star Trek is called by the name of its home planet - but that ultimately turned out not to be the case.) As it happens, one will occasionally see "klingon" being used as a non-proper noun, though when it's used that way it doesn't refer to the species, but rather in the context of "a person who has the klin in him". (It's used in this context, with the explicitly lower-case k, at least once in The Final Reflection.) In the days before spaceflight and multi-species awareness, the Klingons figured they were the only people who did, on account of they thought they were the only people, period. In latter days, it's used as a term of very high praise. Calling n non-Klingon (with a big K) "klingon" (with a small k), usually as part of the phrase, "Kai, klingon," is pretty much the highest compliment a Klingon (with a big K) can come up with. --G. -><- Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/ zgryphon at that email service Google has Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam. |
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Mercutio
Member since May-26-13
808 posts |
Mar-09-14, 02:42 PM (EST) |
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3. "RE: Use Your Words"
In response to message #2
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>I know I've explained this before, but: some species in UF are called >by where they come from, others by the name their species had for >itself before it understood that there were others. I did not know this, and now I do. I had assumed that it wasn't a deliberate stylistic choice in any way. (I do try and keep up on Things That Have Been Explained and Things That Have Not, but... well, you have a big web site here, and while I can search for something like, say, "Atlantis" I can't readily search for more abstract matters.) >As a general >thing, the former are capitalized, the latter are not. Thus, humans >(from Earth and elsewhere), asari (from Thessia), etc., but Romulans >(from Romulus), Gamilons (from Gamilon), and so forth. This is >presumably why "Protheans" is capitalized - it's not technically the >name of their species, per se, but the academic label for the >civilization they were part of. It's like referring to particular >ancient peoples of Earth as Minoans or what have you. I actually dug up my Chicago Manual of Style for this, and... yeah. Huh. It's weird. There are, theoretically, sentence constructions where you wouldn't capitalize something like that, but you'd have to actually go out of your way. (This, by the way, is why I keep bringing up grammar on this board even though I have so far always been wrong. I at least end up learning something.) -Merc Keep Rat |
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MuninsFire
Member since Mar-27-07
213 posts |
Mar-12-14, 02:31 PM (EST) |
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5. "RE: Use Your Words"
In response to message #0
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> >(Shepard knows this.) > >The significance of the last point, in particular, eludes waking me. >Also note that sleeping me has a hard time remembering what month it >is, and thinks "human" is a proper noun. >Either Shepherd spent quite a lot of time in Valhalla with one or more 21st-century-vintage human Martians, or spent some time on Mars in a blint and/or caparnawallah, is how I can see that being interpreted. I think lessons from a human Martian in Valhalla has a lot of potential for plot, personally. -- In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree, Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea |
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Gryphon
Charter Member
18376 posts |
Mar-12-14, 03:01 PM (EST) |
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6. "RE: Use Your Words"
In response to message #5
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>>(Shepard knows this.) >> >>The significance of the last point, in particular, eludes waking me. >>Also note that sleeping me has a hard time remembering what month it >>is, and thinks "human" is a proper noun. > >Either Shepherd spent quite a lot of time in Valhalla with one or more >21st-century-vintage human Martians, or spent some time on Mars in a >blint and/or caparnawallah, is how I can see that being interpreted. Well, yes, I understand how she might have learned it. I'm just not sure why the fact that she knows it was so important that I specifically made note of it. :) --G. -><- Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/ zgryphon at that email service Google has Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam. |
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Offsides
Charter Member
1218 posts |
Mar-13-14, 00:38 AM (EST) |
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7. "RE: Use Your Words"
In response to message #0
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As the father of an almost. 4-year old, the subject of this post made me laugh before I even read it. Then I laughed again :) Offsides [...] in order to be a realist you must believe in miracles. -- David Ben Gurion EPU RCW #π #include <stdsig.h> |
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Sofaspud
Member since Apr-7-06
247 posts |
Mar-16-16, 03:06 AM (EST) |
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9. "RE: Use Your Words"
In response to message #0
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LAST EDITED ON Mar-16-16 AT 03:09 AM (EDT) >Apparently I'm making up vocabulary in my sleep now. In my bedside >notebook today I find the following notation from last night: > > 4 3/9/14 >A "blint" is a short, fierce sandstorm in which visibility drops to >zero. Term originated w/ Human colonists on Mars in 21st century. I *know* I've heard the word 'blint' somewhere before. Urban Dictionary has two definitions for it, one of which kind of sort of maybe rings the right bell, but still. Oh, wait, no; Urban Dictionary has inserted an 'l', and really means 'bint', I think. This is gonna bug me now. Great. > >Not to be confused w/ the 10-day ones. Those are caparnawallahs. > >(Shepard knows this.)
And that one I've never heard of before. But it sounds vaguely faux-Australian, like it stepped out of a Crocodile Dundee movie. (This isn't a *bad* thing, in my book, but I can't not hear the accent now.) >The significance of the last point, in particular, eludes waking >me. Also note that sleeping me has a hard time remembering what >month it is, and thinks "human" is a proper noun. Month? Sleepy You apparently can't remember what *year* it is. :D EDIT: Sleepy *Me* apparently can't read post dates. Poke withdrawn. Derp. (Yay threadnomancy!) --sofaspud -- |
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Prince Charon
Member since Jan-11-09
309 posts |
Jul-30-16, 06:50 AM (EST) |
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12. "RE: Use Your Words"
In response to message #11
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>Blindly, actually, as in, to fumble blindly. Depending, of course, >since translating forms and variants of words are always a hit-or-miss >thing. > >...! >Gott's Leetle Feesh in Trousers! In context, that's a pretty good name for a zero-visibility sandstorm. Perhaps the name originated from a colonist who was born in Sweden, and the word 'caparnawallah' originated with a colonist from Australia (which is amusing in and of itself, that old colonies like the US and Oz are founding colonies of their own, just like Mama Britannia). When Mars is colonized in RL, someone needs to carry these ideas out there. "They planned their campaigns just as you might make a splendid piece of harness. It looks very well; and answers very well; until it gets broken; and then you are done for. Now I made my campaigns of ropes. If anything went wrong, I tied a knot; and went on." -- Arthur Wellesley, First Duke of Wellington
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Gryphon
Charter Member
18376 posts |
Jul-30-16, 01:11 PM (EST) |
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13. "RE: Use Your Words"
In response to message #12
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>(which is amusing in and of itself, that old colonies like the US and >Oz are founding colonies of their own, just like Mama Britannia). There's one fairly significant difference between 21st-century interstellar colonialism and 17th-century English colonialism, in that in the former, there were specific rules against colonizing planets known (or strongly suspected) to be home to indigenous sapient life. Yes, that turns out not to have been observed in the case of Mars, but only unintentionally; at the time the Mars colonies from Earth were established, the native Martians were believed to be extinct. No one deliberately set out to "take up the Earthman's burden" in the First Diaspora. --G. -><- Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/ zgryphon at that email service Google has Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam. |
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Peter Eng
Charter Member
1307 posts |
Jan-19-17, 11:56 AM (EST) |
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16. "RE: also under new coinage"
In response to message #15
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>das Fliegendenhandygesicht n. German. A face in need of >having a mobile telephone thrown at it. From fliegenden, >"flying"; Handy (short for Handtelefon), "cellphone"; >Gesicht, "face". >*giggling* I like this word very much. Peter Eng -- Insert humorous comment here. |
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version 3.3 © 2001
Eyrie Productions,
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Benjamin
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E P U (Colour)
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