Words are hard!

Morrus

Well, that was fun
Staff member
You are clearly living in a parallel universe, Morrus, because we don't spell it like that in my Britain.

It's dying out in popular culture, but we certainly do. For example, a very quick Google search shows that Central Befordshire Council spells it that way, as does Heritage Ireland and Discover Hertford. Also The Guardian and The Independent (only two papers I have immediate access to).

And, of course, the good old Beeb. As one example, here's a news article: "Each offence would carry maximum penalties of five years imprisonment plus an unlimited fine on indictment or 12 months gaol plus a fine of up to £10k in summary cases."

But the best, and most definitive, place to check would of course be HMPS (the Prison Service). A quick search turns up this report: "The current site opened as a county gaol in 1847 and served as such until 1890 when it became a women’s prison. Two additional wings were built adjacent to the main prison in 1902, serving initially as an inebriates centre and, from the mid-1930s, as a borstal for girls. In 1959, the gaol was converted to accommodate adult male prisoners but its role was changed in 1961 to provide accommodation for young men between the ages of 17 and 21."; or indeed this report on Liverpool Prison from 2011: "HMP Liverpool, known locally as Walton Gaol, is a large, local prison for remand and convicted men mainly from the Merseyside area."

Indeed, the Prison Service itself also refers officially to gaolers with rules and guidelines such as:

...The nature of those held, the imbalance of power between detainee and gaoler and the fact that the work of the institution takes place behind high walls, out of sight, creates...

...c) if the payment is made to the gaoler, he shall sign a certificate of payment and send the amount to the court which made the committal order. ( ... it by post or otherwise to the gaoler...

...sign a certificate of payment and send it by post or otherwise to the gaoler; ( b) if the payment is made to the court which issued the warrant of committal after ... court shall make and sign a certificate of payment and send it by post or otherwise...

...Custody teams were drawn from among frontline operational response staff, and normally comprised three sergeants and two gaolers to cover the two suites. ... There was some training for gaolers as part of the borough s training cycle, but no civilian...

...Sergeants were supported by a small number of dedicated detention officers ( DDOs), who were permanent custody staff, and police constable gaolers, who were not permanent and had not benefited from ... Some gaolers could not input onto NSPIS,...

...The Hackney suites benefited from a clear local management structure. There were trained designated detention officers, but custody sergeants and police constable gaolers were not permanent and the latter lacked specific ... 2.7 Custody sergeants and...

...Other custody sergeants and gaolers were drawn from operational policing teams. ... Custody sergeants had attended nationally approved custody training, but PC gaolers had not....

I won't mention Oscar Wilde's famous ballad, as that's a little older. :)

So it may be true that it's dying out in popular culture, but when Her Majesty's Prison Service, the BBC, national newspapers, local councils, and others all spell it "gaol" and "gaoler" it's a pretty hard sell to claim that such spellings must be in an "parallel universe". :)
 

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Oryan77

Adventurer
It's the same argument I have with .GIF images. Giff, not jiff. It's an acronym for Graphics Interchange Format and since the word Graphics is pronounced with a hard G, then the acronym should be as well.

I'm the same way about that one. I'm a graphic artist so I hear people say jiff all the time at work. It just sounds stupid; which I think is the main reason I don't like hearing jiff. But then again, giff sounds pretty dumb too.

Back in the 90's, I named a 2e Elven Ranger of mine Giff. The strange thing is, it didn't occur to me that I just named him after .gif until we started playing. That wasn't my intention. Everyone laughed at the name, until I rolled 4 natural 20's in a row during a boxing match (and he had a low Str). As I became the new boxing champion, the town was attacked by Goblins. So then I followed up with a couple more natural 20's (not in a row) with my bow. Giff was not a person to mock.

......so then everyone else named their PCs Jpegg, P'njee, Beempee, and Tiff. *not really
 

steeldragons

Steeliest of the dragons
Epic
I'm the same way about that one. I'm a graphic artist so I hear people say jiff all the time at work. It just sounds stupid; which I think is the main reason I don't like hearing jiff. But then again, giff sounds pretty dumb too.

OMG, way to get under my skin. Asking for a "jiff" basically gets you a look and a "Really? Really?!"

Back in the 90's, I named a 2e Elven Ranger of mine Giff. The strange thing is, it didn't occur to me that I just named him after .gif until we started playing. That wasn't my intention. Everyone laughed at the name, until I rolled 4 natural 20's in a row during a boxing match (and he had a low Str). As I became the new boxing champion, the town was attacked by Goblins. So then I followed up with a couple more natural 20's (not in a row) with my bow. Giff was not a person to mock.

Ahhhh, but it begs the question...were you attacked by "goblins" or "joblins"??? lolol.

[Mental note: create a race of goblinoid creatures named "joblins" who are very cunningly dangerous and remarkably industrious in their pursuits.]
--SD
 

Lwaxy

Cute but dangerous
I


It's a pseudo-medieval neutral ground. People spelled things however they wanted back in the real middle ages. This made a lot of people very angry because people were spelling the same words different ways, and thus dictionaries were born.
And it has been widely regarded as a bad move, at least by students of all languages ;)

German language "experts" just Germanized a lot of words with the last forced language reversion, and it looks so odd to see the new spellings.
 

Lwaxy

Cute but dangerous
I'm the same way about that one. I'm a graphic artist so I hear people say jiff all the time at work. It just sounds stupid; which I think is the main reason I don't like hearing jiff. But then again, giff sounds pretty dumb too.

Maybe let them know that to jiff means either to spread stinking bodily odor from a back orifice, or, in some costume wearing circles, jiffing has yet another meaning they may not want to be associated with ;)
 


steeldragons

Steeliest of the dragons
Epic
I'm fairly sure, but don't quote me, that that's "yiffing"...but, ya know, I suppose jiffing would work as well [for german speakers]. lol.
 

Plane Sailing

Astral Admin - Mwahahaha!
I'd only ever heard the word Sigil pronounced "sig-ill" until about 8 years ago when my friend Aaron was playing Planescape: Torment and went on a tirade because they pronounced "sij'ill" wrong.

I believe my logic "It's got a G in it, why wouldn't it logically be pronounced sig-ill?".

Well, how do you pronounce Garage?

In english we have hard g's and soft g's - the latter providing the 'j' sound as in Garaje.

:)
 


Psimancer

First Post
My two cents worth from Downunder…

It is definitely Gaol down here, as we are still a part of the commonwealth. I’m surprised Canada doesn’t follow suit, but not overly…

Melee (‘meh-lay’) and most of the others generally seem to be pronounced ‘correctly’ down here, but I encountered the odd, humorous exceptions, such as ‘chim-er-ra’ and 'fatty-goo'...

I can definitely verify Coup De Gras has an ‘s’ sound at the end – I confirmed that when I started dating a French girl.

The one that always makes me cringe when I hear it pronounced differently is Paladin: I pronounce it ‘Pal-a-din’, I have heard people use ‘Pa-ladin’

And in related news, I recently learned, ‘Ye Olde Shoppe’ should be pronounced ‘The’ old shop as the ‘Y’ represents the printed form of the archaic ‘thorn’ letter which represents the ‘th’ sound… article here
 

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