On The Origin of D&D Words

[Yair]

I like rare words, and my travels have brought me to this interesting article (and site). Now I know where "dweomer" comes from

 

[Hussar]

Whoa, now the Libram bit I never knew. Cool beans. Great find.

 

[ecliptic]

Words aren't words till someone makes them up.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

I read that article with great confribulation.

 

[Tinner]

How disappointing.
I read the whole thing, and still don't know where "otyugh" comes from.

 

[StupidSmurf]

I've always thought libram was a perfectly cromulent word.

In all seriousness, D&D's tendency to use older, "bigger" words has actually stood my daughter and son in good stead in high school English. My daughter, who graduated in May and is now attending college, and my son, now a junior in high school, both have been in Honors English courses, and have blown away their teachers with their knowledge of less common English words. Naturally, both of them (and my youngest son) are avid D&Ders.

 

[JoeBlank]

Neat article, and a very cool site. Thanks for the link. I'll end up spending hours reading the material there.

 

[Goblyns Hoard]

I would like to offer you my warmest contrafibularities on your discovery

 

[Shade]

Excellent read. Thanks for posting it!

I remember wowing my teachers with terms like "loathsome", all thanks to D&D.

On the flip side, I'm so used to these words that I'm surprised that they aren't widely known. I slapped down "scry" in a recent game of scrabble and was immediately called on it. The dictionary we had present did nothing to support my claims that it is a real word.

 

[Wombat]

Not only did Lewis Carroll give us "vorpal", he also invented the world "chortle" (from the very same poem).

Yeah, very good article; there are many other terms in D&D that would be amusing to chase down, ignoring, of course, all the "false Tolkeinisms", such as treant and balor. The old polearms names alone could keep people busy for months