[OT] Origin of the term "Splat" book

M

machine

First Post

• Jan 6, 2003

• #1

Howdy Everyone!

My FLGS owner, Jay, says I'm the only person he's heard of use the term, "splat" books, for the class books.

He wanted to know where I picked it up and I happily told him about ENWorld. This is where I picked up the term. But, where did it come from and why "splat"?

Thanks in advance for your help!

machine.

 

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BiggusGeekus@Work

Community Supporter

• Jan 6, 2003

• #2

A * is a "wildcard" character in computing. It is sometimes called a "splat" instead of an "astrix".

So instead of saying fighterbook, wizardbook theifbook, clericbook, and druidbook, some people started calling them *books or splatbooks.

I have no idea who started doing this, but I'm willing to claim credit for it. I also invented the smiley.

 

Tiberius

Explorer

• Jan 6, 2003

• #3

I first heard it in reference to White Wolf's line of Clan/Tribe/Tradition/etc.-specific books, often called "Clanbook: {Clan}" or "Tribebook: {Tribe}". Given that the * is the DOS/UNIX wildcard operator, it made sense to call them *books or splatbooks, since the asterisk looks like a splat when close up. The term seemed to migrate to any other line of similarly-themed books, in this case the classbooks.

-Tiberius

[EDIT: I need to remember that putting things between triangle brackets is not conducive to their appearing on screen.]

 

Last edited: Jan 6, 2003

M

machine

First Post

• Jan 6, 2003

• #4

Wow!

Thanks for the fast replies BiggusGeekus@Work and Tiberius.

Hopefully this'll satisfy Dr. Jay.

Have a great day!

machine.

 

Psion

Adventurer

• Jan 6, 2003

• #5

Tiberius said:

I first heard it in reference to White Wolf's line of Clan/Tribe/Tradition/etc.-specific books, often called "Clanbook: {Clan}" or "Tribebook: {Tribe}". Given that the * is the DOS/UNIX wildcard operator, it made sense to call them *books or splatbooks, since the asterisk looks like a splat when close up. The term seemed to migrate to any other line of similarly-themed books, in this case the classbooks.

Click to expand...

This is precisely correct.

 

diaglo

Adventurer

• Jan 6, 2003

• #6

splat is the sound of something hitting the fan or toilet bowl.

it makes sense for the books in reference.

 

dead_radish

Explorer

• Jan 6, 2003

• #7

I heard it first with the WW clan books as well.

It didn't hurt that Mark Rein*Hagen was the author of a lot of the stuff, and many people called him Mark Reinsplat....

And how many people reading this realized that Splat is one of those words that starts to look really really wrong after you read it six or seven times?

 

V

Voneth

First Post

• Jan 6, 2003

• #8

The term also evolved because no one knew what to call the White Wolf books, they weren't exactly classes, but there were exactly faction books either, especialy since they were tied to different critters.

 

B

Barastrondo

First Post

• Jan 7, 2003

• #9

diaglo said:

splat is the sound of something hitting the fan or toilet bowl.

it makes sense for the books in reference.

Click to expand...

Hyuk yuk yuk.

 

Umbran

Mod Squad

Staff member

Supporter

• Jan 7, 2003

• #10

Tiberius said:

Given that the * is the DOS/UNIX wildcard operator, it made sense to call them *books or splatbooks, since the asterisk looks like a splat when close up.

Click to expand...

IIRC, using "splat" to refer to an asterisk is common typesetting jargon.