[OSRIC] v1.01 release date

[MrFilthyIke]

blimey, filthyIke is a traitor! Next think you know, he'll try to blow up Congress on Guy Fawlkes day. hey wait, that wouldnt be so bad.

Being a fan of all the various editions of D&D, I've been called names before, but traitor is a first.

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

blimey, filthyIke is a traitor! Next think you know, he'll try to blow up Congress on Guy Fawlkes day.

A modern Guy Fawlkes with a Buddy Jesus avatar. Sounds like part of the chorus to a pop song.

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

Just make sure none of the s/he nonsense (with feminine pronouns or possessives appearing out of nowhere as a perversion of tthe language) does not contaminate your work.

I'm certainly all in favour of feminine perversions. But this isn't a White Wolf Noun: The Gerund book.

I've preferred the form "he or she" throughout the text where either gender could apply. I'm conscious that some people prefer "he" in such cases, but I'm fortunate enough to be married to a lady who's worked diligently to raise my consciousness in such matters... sexists can play some other game.

 

[Geoffrey]

Tolkein knew full well he was breaking the usual rules, and he did it anyway because he felt his reasons were good. His "errors" kept getting corrected in proofreading and he kept having to insist that they were reintroduced...

Yep. He wanted to sharply distinguish Middle-earth's Dwarves from the impish dwarfs of English fairy stories. Somewhere (in his Letters or in one of LOTR's appendices) Tolkien even says that at times he wished he had used the plural "Dwarrows" instead of "Dwarves" to even further differentiate. (The term does show up in Dwarrowdelf, however.)

 

[Fifth Element]

I hope that my Scottish, Welsh, Irish, Canadian, Australian, and other Commonwealth friends will be satisfied with my British English...

I think it's great that you're doing different versions...British spellings are one of the few things that we Canucks can point to to differentiate us from the Yanks...though over time I think our spelling is becoming more Americanised (darm young'uns and their fancy MTV!)

I'm always very careful to spell it Armour Class in my books, despite the fact I know the great majority of the market is American. I guess I'm pretty old-fashioned for a 30-year-old.

 

[XO]

Let me get thsi straight....

I've preferred the form "he or she" throughout the text where either gender could apply. I'm conscious that some people prefer "he" in such cases, but I'm fortunate enough to be married to a lady who's worked diligently to raise my consciousness in such matters... sexists can play some other game.

So you will actually bother to produce the British English version, but will do so while applying this nonsense? Errrrrrrr, right! So much for excellency in English.

Obviously your wife is a cat and you're a commoner...

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

I'm produce a British English version because I'm British. It's producing the version in Yankistani that's the "trouble".

"Nonsense" indeed.

 

[greywulf]

British OSRIC monsters have an Armour Class and Special Defences. The opposite of wilderness is civilisation, combat moves are called "manoeuvres", travellers go travelling, one of the planes is called "the æthereal plane", the plural of "dwarf" is "dwarfs" and the adjective is "dwarfish", the middle of something is called the "centre", et cetera, ad nauseam.

Amen, brother!

 

[Faraer]

In British English,

-ize endings are at least as correct as -ise endings, and are favoured by the Oxford dictionaries. It's a misconception that -ize is an Americanism.

the plural of dwarf in the 'fantasy' sense is 'dwarves' as well as 'dwarfs', since the precedent set by the British author J.R.R. Tolkien

'manœuvre' is fussy and obsolescent


While I'm fluent in written British and US English, Canadian English -- which is somewhere between the two -- is somewhat mysterious to me.

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

In British English,

-ize endings are at least as correct as -ise endings, and are favoured by the Oxford dictionaries. It's a misconception that -ize is an Americanism.

Both are correct. The form "-ise" is more recent, and has risen steadily in popularity, more dramatically over the past few years. I favour it personally, so I have chosen to use it in the British English version. The US English version obviously uses "-ize".

the plural of dwarf in the 'fantasy' sense is 'dwarves' as well as 'dwarfs', since the precedent set by the British author J.R.R. Tolkien

This subject is well-addressed above... My view is that Tolkein deliberately broke the rules of modern grammar and spelling in several ways, for reasons that seemed good to him. I don't criticise him for doing so, and I've been happy to stick with it in the US English version because I think it's expected. In the British English version I've chosen to prefer "dwarfs".

'manœuvre' is fussy and obsolescent

I agree. I've chosen to use ligatures in three specific cases -- "æthereal", "mediæval" (which only appears once in the text) and "chimæra" -- because I like the flavour that gives, but not otherwise (hence, for example, "larvae" and "manoeuvre" appear as shown). I agree that this is inconsistent usage and slightly obsolescent, and I've done it anyway.

The issue doesn't arise in US English.

While I'm fluent in written British and US English, Canadian English -- which is somewhere between the two -- is somewhat mysterious to me.

Wikipedia (Wikipædia? ) has a good article on this subject... Canadian English seems to contain a few intrusions from the American dialect, but our Canuck friends appear to be rather defiantly resisting any further such influxes.