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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 8529032" data-attributes="member: 18">The problem is that this isn't an issue of "national prejudice", it's an issue of how the word is understood across a large proportion of English speakers, and how it has been used historically, and by historically, I mean right up into the present day.The idea that "savage" being often offensive in how it is used is somehow limited to, I dunno, America, or some part of America is simply incorrect. Surprising that someone who thinks so highly of their abilities with English isn't aware of this.In the end, too, D&D is a game produced in a specific country by a specific culture, and will inevitably be influenced primarily by that culture and its attitudes. The idea that it could exist in some ethereal "international" space, somehow floating above actual countries and culture is not a rational one.EDIT - To clarify further, the present real-world situation is that it's still broadly acceptable to use savage (or even "barbaric", though that borders on political dogwhistle in all primary English-speaking countries) to describe, say, an attack or the like, albeit some people may cringe slightly, as it sounds a bit grandpa and other words like "horrific" do the same job. It is not, however, broadly acceptable to describe people or cultures as "savage", and indeed it has not been actually-okay since, what, the 1990s?You also repeatedly incorrectly claim "savage" as used to describe people or culture is "useful". This is not right. Because of its wild historical misuse, "savage" is just a confusing and misleading word. Peoples and cultures, especially tribal ones, have been described as "savage" so frequently that it's lost meaning. A largely pacifistic tribe which dresses in a way a 1700s English guy might find "outlandish" gets called "savage", and a bunch of screaming Norsemen raiding churches and monasteries get called "savage", and a fairly reasonable and straightforward highly organised group of people, who are easy to negotiate with, have elaborate laws, but say, kill their enemies, who happen to be white people, get called "savage". It's a word that's been slung around wildly and idiotically. So you insisting on using it is just silly. Even without the offensive elements, it's a word which has lost real meaning. No amount of pointing to a dictionary definition is going to defeat that misuse, especially as 99% of English speakers don't know the dictionary meanings of words, they only know the real-world usage of words. That might different in France. French has a tiny number of words, and has a central body standardizing their usage. English has many, many, many times more words in common usage (millions compared to 200k), and no standardizing body. So perhaps your misunderstanding stems from thinking that Dictionary >>>> Real World Usage. In French, perhaps. In English? No. Never. Real World Usage >>>> Dictionary. If most people use a word "incorrectly" by dictionary standards, the meaning of the word changes*.(The word "primitive" has similar issues, again, even if we strip it of offense. It tells you more about the speaker than the object of discussion. Extremely complex societies with elaborate rules and often significant technologies get called "primitive" right next to deep-paleolithic peoples, and even with say, the paleolithic people, the sheer complex of techniques involved in flaking flint and so on can get missed because of the piles of silly associations the word "primitive" has acquired. It's not a very useful word. If you describe a society as "primitive", all I can tell is they probably don't use metal tools a great deal, because it's such misused/abused.)* = If you doubt this just search on "words which have changed meaning" on Google.</blockquote>

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