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Gryphonadmin
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Mar-09-14, 01:02 PM (EST)
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"Use Your Words"
 
   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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  Subject     Author     Message Date     ID  
  RE: Use Your Words Mercutio Mar-09-14 1
     RE: Use Your Words Gryphonadmin Mar-09-14 2
         RE: Use Your Words Mercutio Mar-09-14 3
         RE: Use Your Words Bushido Mar-10-14 4
  RE: Use Your Words MuninsFire Mar-12-14 5
     RE: Use Your Words Gryphonadmin Mar-12-14 6
  RE: Use Your Words Offsides Mar-13-14 7
  RE: Use Your Words Gryphonadmin Mar-15-16 8
  RE: Use Your Words Sofaspud Mar-16-16 9
     RE: Use Your Words dbrandon Mar-16-16 10
         RE: Use Your Words MoonEyes Apr-05-16 11
             RE: Use Your Words Prince Charon Jul-30-16 12
                 RE: Use Your Words Gryphonadmin Jul-30-16 13
                 RE: Use Your Words MoonEyes Aug-04-16 14
  also under new coinage Gryphonadmin Jan-18-17 15
     RE: also under new coinage Peter Eng Jan-19-17 16

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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
 
   >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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Gryphonadmin
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Mar-09-14, 02:14 PM (EST)
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2. "RE: Use Your Words"
In response to message #1
 
   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
 
  
>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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Bushido
Member since Apr-8-10
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Mar-10-14, 04:01 PM (EST)
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4. "RE: Use Your Words"
In response to message #2
 
   As I recall, you still haven't played Mass Effect 3. There was a bit of dialog that addressed that. Liara is talking to Javik (the Prothean squad mate from the day 1 DLC)about how they were the only race active in their cycle. He corrects her and says that there were other races that had been conquered and subsumed into the Prothean Empire but eventually "all called themselves Prothean" or something to that effect. It doesn't really mean much in the grand scheme of things, but it explains the existence of the Prothean Cypher that Shepard got from the Thorian in the first game.

--------
Wedge Defense Force General Order 12: "Try to avoid freaking the mundanes."


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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
 
  
>
>(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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Gryphonadmin
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Mar-12-14, 03:01 PM (EST)
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6. "RE: Use Your Words"
In response to message #5
 
   >>(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
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Mar-13-14, 00:38 AM (EST)
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7. "RE: Use Your Words"
In response to message #0
 
   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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Gryphonadmin
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Mar-15-16, 01:42 PM (EST)
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8. "RE: Use Your Words"
In response to message #0
 
   >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.)

Poking around in the back threads last night, I ran across this one and realized that the event at the beginning of The Martian is totally a blint.

--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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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
 
   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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dbrandon
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Mar-16-16, 08:37 AM (EST)
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10. "RE: Use Your Words"
In response to message #9
 
   "Blint" is clearly the supersingular form of "blintz."*

It also apparently means "blind" in Swedish, for whatever that's worth.

dbrandon
*no, not really.


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MoonEyes
Member since Jun-29-03
502 posts
Apr-05-16, 11:47 AM (EST)
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11. "RE: Use Your Words"
In response to message #10
 
   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!


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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
 
   >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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Gryphonadmin
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Jul-30-16, 01:11 PM (EST)
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13. "RE: Use Your Words"
In response to message #12
 
   >(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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MoonEyes
Member since Jun-29-03
502 posts
Aug-04-16, 09:42 AM (EST)
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14. "RE: Use Your Words"
In response to message #12
 
   >In context, that's a pretty good name for a zero-visibility sandstorm.

Pretty much my thought at the time, too, yeah. Blindly is pretty much how you'll stumble along in a sandstorm, indeed.

...!
Gott's Leetle Feesh in Trousers!


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Gryphonadmin
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Jan-18-17, 07:23 PM (EST)
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15. "also under new coinage"
In response to message #0
 
   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".

--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
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Jan-19-17, 11:56 AM (EST)
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16. "RE: also under new coinage"
In response to message #15
 
   >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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