D&D 5E Content Warning Labels? Yeah or Nay?

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Today, both "fay" and "fey" are Modern English words.

"Fay" means fairy, the equivalent of Middle English, fairie.

"Fey" doesnt.

It is a matter of looking a word up in a dictionary.

In my 40 years of gaming, and longer for reading fantasy novels, I have never seen Fay used for fairy. It has always been Fey, especially when referring to Celtic-type Fairy folk.

 

[bedir than]

When it comes to Arabic, it really is up to the author. I would ignore apostrophes in English. On the other hand, I expect every Arabic speaking nation will have an official transliteration system, which its citizens may or may not tend to use. I would look up the system from where the folkbelief comes.

At the same time, I would try to make it look pronounceable to an English speaker. For example, for the sacred text, I would spell it Quran, rather than Qur’an (with glottal character) or Koran (Anglicization).

This shows a level of inventiveness that demonstrates you know there is absolutely no council in either English or Arabic.

Dictionaries are reactive, not proactive. Common usage for modern words and transliteration guides decisions by those that make dictionaries.

Since the audience you are insisting is wrong is dramatically larger than the audience that you insist is correct, fey is in fact being used correctly. That's how English works (French doesn't work this way).

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

If you used Faie for a creature, most of us would think its some kind of construct make of pâté de foie (liver pâté) from Belgium and north of France.

My next campaign will have an evil alchemist selling pâté de faie. I wonder how I'll get this joke in writting, probably through a prop, hoping the players will point out the error for it to be corrected as fée. There is a very slim chance it happens but it's worth trying.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Heh, maybe the spelling variant faé is better for a Modern French ear?

Not really, this does not make the sound you seek. Fée is pretty much pronounced like Fey/Fae.

''Faé'' would be whole other pronunciation and wouldnt mean nothin'.

well...what do you know....French is complicated thing!

 

[Yaarel]

well...what do you know....French is complicated thing!

Yeah and the borrowing from Old French to Modern English is similarly complicated.



It looks something like:

Classical Latin fatum → Vulgar Latin fata → Old French fae → Middle French fée → feie → Middle English feie → faie → Modern English → fay

Relatedly:

Old French faerie → Middle English faierie → fairie → Modern English fairy

(Modern English faerie is an intentional borrowing from the archaic Old French spelling.)



Notably, in every case, these terms mean: magic, magical, magicked, and magicking.



When I look at the prominent dictionaries, the term is fay. However when I look at wictionary the term is fey. This suggests recent popculture has adopted an improper use of fey under the influence of fay and fairy. This usage derives from a sense of fey that came to mean otherworldly, even clairvoyant, but in recent decades comes to be used to specifically mean magical and fairy.

Compare how the incorrect use of "longsword" by D&D entered popculture.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Current edition actually uses longsword more or less correctly. It is, well, a longish sword, that can be used either by one or two hands. The issue (if you consider it to be such) is that there is no separate arming sword. But I guess in D&D terms it would simply be a longsword without 'versatile' property.

 

[S'mon]

Current edition actually uses longsword more or less correctly. It is, well, a longish sword, that can be used either by one or two hands. The issue (if you consider it to be such) is that there is no separate arming sword. But I guess in D&D terms it would simply be a longsword without 'versatile' property.

The 5e longsword killed the bastard sword & took its stuff.

 

[bedir than]

there is no separate arming sword. But I guess in D&D terms it would simply be a longsword without 'versatile' property.

Rather easy to have a d8 slashing sword with no finesse or versatile. What PC would want it?

 

[BookTenTiger]

The 5e longsword killed the bastard sword & took its stuff.

All Swords Are Bastards(words)

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Rather easy to have a d8 slashing sword with no finesse or versatile. What PC would want it?

The same one who wants trident and padded armour?