Tequila Sunrise
Adventurer
Savage Wombat wagered in the gish thread that if I started a thread about my grammatical pet peeves, I'd get plenty of sympathy hate. So I am.
My first one is a recent development: character option 'bloat.' I'm sorry, but bloat is a female problem. Options are icing on the game cake!
My second one is the notorious 'rouge.' Every time I see it in the context of a D&D discussion, I wonder how gamers can see 'rogue' printed a zillion times in their game books and still misspell it. But I try not to get all grammar nazi about it, because it's also a testament to how asinine the English language is.
'Rogue' is an exception to a completely unnecessary exception. Normally G makes its own sound; except when it's followed by an E, in which case it makes the J sound. (Talk about violation of niche protection! And some of us complain when one character class or other inches into the precious personal space of another. G and its minion E outright beat J up, and take its place whenever they please!) But wait! When U gets between G and E, G has to stick to its own sound. So we end up with a five letter word with one vowel too many, because English can't be bothered to keep its grammar any saner than the 3.0 Epic Level Handbook.
Actually, it's no wonder that so many gamers misspell rouge. Er, rogue.
My third one isn't D&D specific, but it comes up plenty in D&D: redundant letters, mid-word apostrophes, and ambiguous vowels. Examples include Drizzt Do'Urden, Baatezu, and Tanar'ri. Basically, too many writers of fantasy fiction think that turning English's schizophrenic nature up to 11 makes their fiction more exotic-sounding and imaginative; but I'm tired of it. It doesn't sound cool anymore, it just takes me out of the fiction when a part of my brain gets sidetracked trying to decide how best to mentally pronounce things.
When I first got my Planescape boxed CS, I thought the weird fiendish nomenclature was neat and gave the D&D multiverse a unique air. But after years of being inundated with equally bizarre names, and learning why 2e didn't leave well enough alone with 'demons' and 'devils,' I've switched to the latter.
My fourth and fifth aren't game-related at all, but are nevertheless worthy of discussion:
'I could care less.' No, I don't think that doesn't mean what you think it means; I know it doesn't mean what you think it means. Who's with me?
'A near miss.' Ever since I was introduced the hilarity that is George Carlin, it's bugged me every time I hear this. Although Umbran suggested the possible 'miss that nearly hit' origin of the phrase, which I guess I can dig.
What are yours?
My first one is a recent development: character option 'bloat.' I'm sorry, but bloat is a female problem. Options are icing on the game cake!
My second one is the notorious 'rouge.' Every time I see it in the context of a D&D discussion, I wonder how gamers can see 'rogue' printed a zillion times in their game books and still misspell it. But I try not to get all grammar nazi about it, because it's also a testament to how asinine the English language is.
'Rogue' is an exception to a completely unnecessary exception. Normally G makes its own sound; except when it's followed by an E, in which case it makes the J sound. (Talk about violation of niche protection! And some of us complain when one character class or other inches into the precious personal space of another. G and its minion E outright beat J up, and take its place whenever they please!) But wait! When U gets between G and E, G has to stick to its own sound. So we end up with a five letter word with one vowel too many, because English can't be bothered to keep its grammar any saner than the 3.0 Epic Level Handbook.
Actually, it's no wonder that so many gamers misspell rouge. Er, rogue.
My third one isn't D&D specific, but it comes up plenty in D&D: redundant letters, mid-word apostrophes, and ambiguous vowels. Examples include Drizzt Do'Urden, Baatezu, and Tanar'ri. Basically, too many writers of fantasy fiction think that turning English's schizophrenic nature up to 11 makes their fiction more exotic-sounding and imaginative; but I'm tired of it. It doesn't sound cool anymore, it just takes me out of the fiction when a part of my brain gets sidetracked trying to decide how best to mentally pronounce things.
When I first got my Planescape boxed CS, I thought the weird fiendish nomenclature was neat and gave the D&D multiverse a unique air. But after years of being inundated with equally bizarre names, and learning why 2e didn't leave well enough alone with 'demons' and 'devils,' I've switched to the latter.
My fourth and fifth aren't game-related at all, but are nevertheless worthy of discussion:
'I could care less.' No, I don't think that doesn't mean what you think it means; I know it doesn't mean what you think it means. Who's with me?
'A near miss.' Ever since I was introduced the hilarity that is George Carlin, it's bugged me every time I hear this. Although Umbran suggested the possible 'miss that nearly hit' origin of the phrase, which I guess I can dig.
What are yours?
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