The "I Didn't Comment in Another Thread" Thread

[MNblockhead]

Seriously people. Venom is injected. Poison is eaten, touched, or inhaled. The snake isn’t poisonous, it’s venomous. The frog isn’t venomous, it’s poisonous.

DM: "The giant poisonous snake bites you. Make a con save."
Player: "You mean 'venomous'".
DM: (oh here he goes with this s**t again)... No. It's a giant Rhabdophis keelback. Oh, and roll at disadvantage due to pedantic a-holery."

[Just ribbing you a bit. Personally I like to use words correctly and increasing my vocabulary. I may be one of the few people that doesn't mind being corrected. But what I most enjoy is being "corrected" on something that I know a lot about and am actually correct and can sling the pedantry back.]

 

[trappedslider]

 

[MNblockhead]

'I don't care what the law says, I don't like it so I'm going to say no'

You'd think that TTRPG players on a jury would lead to more jury nullifications, but we are in the era of Rule 0.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I get venom and poison right nowadays, but stalactites and stalagmites still trip me up.

Also, Colbert would probably both be a very fun person to DM for, but also pretty demanding. And god help you if you run The One Ring for him.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Omg yes. I immediately stop reading when I see this stuff.

I get on here mostly to talk about D&D…

Its really easy to get hostile to D&D if you're fond of other types of game and see it dominate everything. I was that way for probably two decades before I concluded it was super-counter-productive.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Despite not being a biology professor, you know the difference. And you could just as easily use the correct term. But you choose to use the wrong term anyway. That’s weird. It’s not about being technically correct. It’s about being right or wrong. To quote Mark Twain, “The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter—’tis the difference between lightning and lightning bug.”

Or, you could recognize that in common usage the terms are used interchangeably, and recognize language is like that. That sort of thing is not uncommon.

 

[prabe]

Or, you could recognize that in common usage the terms are used interchangeably, and recognize language is like that. That sort of thing is not uncommon.

You can simultaneously acknowledge that the difference is real, and plausibly worth maintaining; and that usage hasn't maintained it.

 

[ichabod]

But you choose to use the wrong term anyway.

No, I don't. It's only the wrong term in a specific technical context. Playing D&D is not that context, so it is not the wrong term.

 

[Thomas Shey]

You can simultaneously acknowledge that the difference is real, and plausibly worth maintaining; and that usage hasn't maintained it.

If usage hasn't maintained it, for general usage, it isn't worth maintaining (in contrast to the specialty usage). That's how language works.

To make it clear, I'm not speaking in terms of ignoring it when its liable to be relevant. I'm saying being more generally soggy about it is pointless.

 

[prabe]

If usage hasn't maintained it, for general usage, it isn't worth maintaining (in contrast to the specialty usage). That's how language works.

Maybe. If usage hasn't maintained it, the vast majority of users haven't found it to be worth doing so, yes. But I'm someone who'll make a point of the difference between forte and forte, so I'm almost certainly an outlier on this.