Is "Justiciar" the new "Rogue?"

[breschau]

Are you kidding? That's been the biggest line of defense of letting people spell Justiciar without the I in both these threads. It's the "you can't stop the evolution of language" BS defense. It drives English teachers mad.

I have to believe that on some level, people who are supporting the misuse or misspelling of words are doing so because A) they don't want to admit they've been saying/spelling it incorrectly, B) think the proper way to say/pronounce it is silly, or C) just like to argue.

Cheers,
Cam

a) Hopefully I admit to mistakes as often as I make them.

b) It is damned silly. I like "just-i-car" you like "just-i-sheer". I prefer autos and you prefer scissors.

c) I love to argue. Especially when I'm right.

None of the above changes the fact that justicar has been used consistently for decades in game books. Given White Wolf's editorial... freestyle it's safer to assume that even a single instance of the "ciar" version would appear rather than that they would be perfectly consistent against it.

Funnily enough, if I'm lucky, I'm going to be an English professor. At the graduate level no less. That the language evolves doesn't bother me one bit. You really seem to be denying that it changes over time. It's a fact that comes with a great side dish called evidence. It happens.

I know that the "rules" listed in Chicago Manual of Style are just suggestions. They are used by the publishing industry to foster consistency, not because they're right. I know that the "rules" that are taught in school concerning usage are also just suggestions. These are based on old scholar's opinions that have just as much evidence against as for. It's a funny thing this language of ours. It changes so much that the experts can't even agree.

The crux of your denial seems to be that you won't accept that language changes. If you accept that language does change them you shouldn't be so put out about the introduction and consistent use of a new word like justicar. If you refuse to accept that language changes, then stop using newfangled words google, email, laptop, wifi, computer, etc. That these words exist proves that language evolves. You just don't like justicar. That's your issue. All the relevant arguments have been made, all that's left is that they be read.

 

[Cam Banks]

The crux of your denial seems to be that you won't accept that language changes. If you accept that language does change them you shouldn't be so put out about the introduction and consistent use of a new word like justicar. If you refuse to accept that language changes, then stop using newfangled words google, email, laptop, wifi, computer, etc. That these words exist proves that language evolves. You just don't like justicar. That's your issue. All the relevant arguments have been made, all that's left is that they be read.

I'm not denying that language changes at all. That's misinterpreting my position. What I'm saying is that, in this instance, people are claiming that it's OK to spell and/or pronounce this word incorrectly for no good reason other than "White Wolf did it" or "I always did before." In this instance, what White Wolf does is meaningless, and what one has done before is also pretty irrelevant.

I wholeheartedly agree that language is a shifting, organic thing, but I think your defense here is weak. WotC's spelling Justiciar correctly. You're suggesting we don't spell it the way they're spelling it, or at the very least, accept that others are pronouncing it incorrectly, to which I call shenanigans.

Cheers,
Cam

 

[Thyrwyn]

I think we should spell it pwnicar - now that sounds bad-a$$. Or maybe more-than-just-i-car. Heck, let's evolve the language some more and call them Corvettes. . .

 

[Cam Banks]

I think we should spell it pwnicar - now that sounds bad-a$$. Or maybe more-than-just-i-car. Heck, let's evolve the language some more and call them Corvettes. . .

You troublemaker, you.

Cheers,
Cam

 

[Nytmare]

It drives English teachers mad.

English teachers, maybe, but linguists live for it.

 

[Marius Delphus]

Language evolves. That's true. I'm cool with that. I'm hip. I grok that. That's swell; that's way cool; that's hunky-dory with me.

We're talking about what appears to be, at best, a variant spelling of a very rare word here. The variance amounts to a single letter that usually appears and sometimes doesn't in occurrences of the word over the past few centuries. The less common spelling doesn't actually duplicate that of another existing word (unlike "rogue" vs. "rouge"). It's not possible to definitively pin down one spelling as "correct" and the other as "incorrect" (unlike, again, "rogue" vs. "rouge"), but the preponderance of the evidence adduced so far points toward leaving in the "i" as being the standard spelling.

However valid (or not) as an alternate spelling, "Justicar" is not, by these lights, a neologism, nor is it evidence of an imminent language shift. And it shouldn't be enough to raise a "prescriptive" vs. "descriptive" debate on modern English spelling, grammar, and usage (but there's that word, "should," again). And, anyway, if you try "language evolves" as an excuse for not following standard English when writing a term paper, business proposal, or published work, your grades will suffer, your company won't get the contract, and you'll be raked over the coals for your inability to use standard English -- you will not be lauded for your forward thinking or your free-form approach to language evolution.

The revolution won't start because people misspell a word from the Player's Handbook. Appealing to White Wolf and World of Warcraft won't help, either.

WOTC appears to have decided (IMO, rightly) to standardize on "Justiciar" for Fourth Edition. One hopes that they will stick to their guns and that third-party publishers will follow suit (if only because seeing it spelled it two different ways in forthcoming material would give me a splitting headache).

Personally, I don't even know why people are getting so het up about this. It's an archaic word for which WOTC has chosen a spelling that actually agrees with how it's most often been spelled, historically. How does this even become an issue?

 

[RandomCitizenX]

Are you kidding? That's been the biggest line of defense of letting people spell Justiciar without the I in both these threads. It's the "you can't stop the evolution of language" BS defense. It drives English teachers mad.

I have to believe that on some level, people who are supporting the misuse or misspelling of words are doing so because A) they don't want to admit they've been saying/spelling it incorrectly, B) think the proper way to say/pronounce it is silly, or C) just like to argue.

Cheers,
Cam

As an English graduate I just wanted to chime in that the evolution of the language is a perfectly valid defense as many of my college professors were happy to point out when I was still in school. If a word becomes common use with a large enough group, then it becomes part of the language. I personally try and pronounce things in what is currently considered to be the academic standard (in this case Justiciar, now that I have become aware of my previous error), but that doesn't change the fact that Justicar may become just as valid one day.

 

[breschau]

I'm not denying that language changes at all. That's misinterpreting my position. What I'm saying is that, in this instance, people are claiming that it's OK to spell and/or pronounce this word incorrectly for no good reason other than "White Wolf did it" or "I always did before." In this instance, what White Wolf does is meaningless, and what one has done before is also pretty irrelevant.

I wholeheartedly agree that language is a shifting, organic thing, but I think your defense here is weak. WotC's spelling Justiciar correctly. You're suggesting we don't spell it the way they're spelling it, or at the very least, accept that others are pronouncing it incorrectly, to which I call shenanigans.

Cheers,
Cam

No, what I'm suggesting is there are two words in question here, not one. Justiciar is pronounced "just-i-sheer." I'm not denying that. Justicar is pronounced "just-i-car." I'm not denying that. That the latter is derived from the former no one can deny. Your claim seems to be that the second is a just a misspelling of the first that's lasted too long, doesn't have an independent meaning/use, and that it shouldn't exist. I disagree.

What I'm saying is that decades of consistent use of the word justicar makes it, by default, a real word. That's how the language evolves. It just happened, you missed it. Considering it is in print in various places, and used consistently therein, it does exist. How many other words have been invented by game companies? Wow, that's a dissertation in itself. Yet you don't deny any of those. There have to be a few that are intentional or unintentional misspellings of other words.

And it's not just WotC, WoW has it too. If a certain number of people have to use a word before it becomes real for you, then hold onto your hat, because as of July 2007, WoW had 9 million users. At least 9 million people know the word justicar. How many know the word justiciar?

Market research conducted at Wizards of the Coast in 1999-2000 indicated that more than 1.5 million people played D&D on a monthly basis, and about 2 million people played all tabletop RPGs combined on a monthly basis.

Assuming every tabletop gamer knows justiciar, you're still outnumbered 4.5:1. And that's when you forget about all the WoD players who are just fine with justicar.

I know that the masses are not a good judge of what is proper English, but you have to accept that at some point, the language will change in ways that you don't like. This is simply one of them. The dictionary only reports on usage, not dictate from on high what proper English should be.

EDIT: As noted while I was typing this, at worst justicar is a variant spelling. But you can't claim which was used more without doing a hell of a lot of research.

Also, as note while I was typing this, the more widespread a given word (or variant spelling) is, the more it is accepted. Given the numbers I posted, the variant w/o the "i" is more widespread, and thus more accepted. WotC has done the best it could, use an anachronistic word using the lesser know spelling. Perfect for medieval fantasy role-playing.

 

[Marius Delphus]

How 'bout these numbers?

I got 172,000 hits and a definition link for "justiciar" on Google.
I got 126,000 hits for "justicar" on Google.

EDIT: I'm not trying to be snarky here. I'm actually trying to say that no conclusion can really be drawn about which spelling is more "popular," since that seems to be a criterion we're adopting for how things "can" be spelled (versus, I suppose, how they "ought" to be spelled).

I mean nothing by it; I'm just musing. For example, how many WOW players know about the "Justicar" gear? How many of those know "justicar" didn't originate as a proper noun? How many know that its brother word "justiciar" means, roughly, "an officer of a law court"? I don't think there's any proof that "justicar" has been adopted by nine million people as an alternate spelling for "justiciar," just as I don't think there's any proof it's been adopted by everyone who read WOTC's "Complete Warrior." In fact, I think it's conceivable, in the alternative, that most who've read the word in gaming material think it's either a proper noun, gaming jargon, or an invented word. And either way it's a hypothesis that can't really be tested.

But maybe, ultimately, this is all entirely off-topic and we ought to all go back to our respective corners while accepting that WOTC is going to spell it "justiciar."

 

[Cam Banks]

What I'm saying is that decades of consistent use of the word justicar makes it, by default, a real word.

17 years isn't really "decades." Now you're just stretching things to make your argument sound better.

I don't deny that Justicar is a word used in Vampire (prior to the recent revision) or, for that matter, that it's used in other places. However, I'm still pretty damn sure it's spelled that way as a result of a typographical error nobody caught, and that it has no bearing on the correct use and spelling of Justiciar as it's been included in 4e D&D.

So—getting back to the core of all of this nonsense—if anybody asks how to pronounce or spell the 4e paragon path under discussion, it would be incorrect to leave out the I.

Cheers,
Cam