Hey Rube! and other archaic knowledge

[Plane Sailing]

Maybe there's a different take on this. Some of us are word people.

I have a built-in spell checker. I don't mispell, I make typoes. (which now I regret saying because I can't recall if the plural of typo ends with 'es' or 's').

I pick up the meaning of words through the context of its usage. In short, I seldom had to look stuff up. And for stuff I couldn't figure out, I either looked it up, or held in in a mental space such that I got the gist of what the author meant and didn't let it block me from continuing. Then later, I'd see a reference which would adjust or refine my definition of the word.

Plus I read comics, which even in the 80's still had a good word to picture ratio pictures and exposed us to lots of science terms.

Conversely, one of my friends with pretty much the exact same exposure and hobbies couldn't spell to save his life. And he was a nerd.

To get back to dog-eared and how my brain figures out the meaning of stuff:

The first time I heard "dog-eared book" it becomes obvious what that means, especially if you've seen anybody fold over the corner of a page. On a deck of cards, by saying "dog eared" you are implying an action of dog earing the cards has happened *because of the past tense on the word eared, implying a verb-like effect). That's harder to visualize, but having played a lot of cards I know what a worn deck looks like. As a writer, I probably would describe a book as dog-eared, but not a deck of cards. Generally, dog-earing happens to a book because somebody keeps referring to specific passages, so they fold a corner down. Though its also possible for that to happen through getting banged around, like a deck of cards.

I guess that I'm in this kind of camp too, which generally works very well, but occasionally leads to lovely 'a-ha' moments when I find out what something means.

For example, for years I thought that when a book was 'slightly foxed' I thought it meant that it had become damage via mechanical means, and was kind of dog eared all over. I was delighted to learn that it was actually referring to chemical deterioration, although I don't recall whether it was because it was a fox-like brown colouration or because it was connected with Ferrous Oxide of some form

And FWIW I dislike seeing lowest common denominator language used in anything other than structured reading books for children. I think that the english language is weakened when good, descriptive words are abandoned in favour of more generic 'easier' words.

Cheers

 

[Bullgrit]

Maybe there's a different take on this. Some of us are word people.

LOL!

I'm a writer and editor by profession. Have been for around 15 years. (Was merely a hobby for 10 years before getting paid for it.)

But I wasn't even interested in reading very much when I was 13 -- when I was first introduced to D&D. I was a couple years into D&D before I started reading a lot. My 8 year old son has probably already read more books than I did by the age of 13.

Bullgrit

 

[heirodule]

One that stood out to me was in the 1e DMG, where the script of the players playing a session of D&D is recorded.

One of them is told by the DM that the pool of water has mineral deposits in it, and the player decides to search in them "because he remembers what Shakespeare said about a 'sea change'"

Hadn't heard the terms before, and also was intrigued that reading Shakespeare was held forth as something to help you find treasure in D&D.

 

[Storm Raven]

One that stood . . .

Your handle reminds me that if one truly wants obscure, archaic language, one should look to Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun.

 

[dogoftheunderworld]

Yes, rules should be written clearly as to be able to play a game. But flavor text should add flavor.

Also, to me, part of D&D is the mystery of the D&D world. Archaic words? Melee, Gnoll, Rogue, Scimitar, Bolo... these all seem simple to understand to us, but are clearly not pop-culture. D&D is built on archaic (or archaic sounding) words. I love when my son mispronounces "skimitar" or finds scale mail armor and fervently leafs through the PHB to see what it looks like.

The words, the odd dice, the strange creatures... it's all part of the adventure.

Clearly not everything sticks (I don't remember the Hey Rube reference in B2, and I had to look it up after reading it here), but it certainly didn't stop us from having fun.

 

[Flatus Maximus]

Oh... right. Why indeed would anyone who makes a living selling their product want to make an attempt to reach a wider audience?

The very notion boggles the mind.

You reach the same damn audience, you just require some of them to use a dictionary. Do you really think someone's not going to buy a module because it contains some words they aren't familiar with? And is it really all about making money? Isn't that an assumption that may not be valid?

 

[TheAuldGrump]

How old were you when you heard/read "dog eared" for the very first time? I was 13 or 14 years old, reading a D&D module.

Bullgrit

Maybe eight years old. Reading a novel - like most here (I think) I was well past children's primers. (I remember being very disappointed when I had just finished reading 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, then went to school and had to read Dick and Jane. )

It is also possible that I was told not to dog-ear my books.

In any event, long ago enough that I don't really remember not knowing the term. Certainly before OD&D.

There were words I picked up from AD&D - many of the names on the wandering prostitutes table, somehow my parents had left them out of my education.... Lich (or in my case Lyke from Willy's Lyke Wake) I already knew. Catoblepus I had to look up, Gorgon and Medusa as separate critters I got annoyed with. By the time of OD&D I was reading Lovecraft and Tolkien - both fond of polysyllabic stylings.

Heck, even Dr. Seuss would throw in words like ichthyologist* once in a while.

The Auld Grump, I guess that I have always been 'word people'.

*In the dedication to Dr. Theodore Giessel, ichthyologist....

*EDIT* I went to school in South Boston Massachusetts. Tain't just Wisconsin.

 

[billd91]

Another point comes to mind. It's one thing to expect a reader to go to the dictionary and look up a word. It's another thing to toss a strange term or obscure bit of vocabulary into the read-aloud text of a module.

If the group sitting around the coffee table playing the game doesn't understand the description of the room their characters are in, unnecessary delay, confusion and loss of suspension of disbelief are likely.

It's a simple enough process - the DM looks up any words he doesn't know as part of the game prep. If the players don't know it, can't come up with it around the table, the DM further describes it based on his knowledge of the vocabulary.