Pronuctuation of 'mana'

[Norfleet]

Good, I never could understand why bread from the sky was used as the term for magical energy pool!

That's easy enough to understand. Bread from the sky is an effect of the spell "Create Food". Therefore, a single unit of this magical energy is the defined as the amount of energy required to create a single piece of bread from the sky.

 

[Magic Slim]

I think you guys all missed the point. The thread wasn't about pronunciation, it was about the pronuctuation of mana. You know who's mana I'd pronuctuate? Alyssa Milano's. Ah yeah.

Slim

 

[Norfleet]

I think you guys all missed the point. The thread wasn't about pronunciation, it was about the pronuctuation of mana. You know who's mana I'd pronuctuate? Alyssa Milano's. Ah yeah.

Slim

I have never heard of this word, and I consider myself a fairly well-read individual. To further underscore this, I can't find it in the dictionary either. And I frankly have no idea who this "Alyssa Milano" is, although I presume the reference is to something obscene.

 

[Desdichado]

Of course it's not a real word. Alyssa Milano is a hottie, though. Can't think of anything she's done recently, except Charmed.

 

[s/LaSH]

Good, I never could understand why bread from the sky was used as the term for magical energy pool!

So, what does mana mean, anyway?

According to Oxford:

Power, authority, prestige (chiefly NZ); an impersonal supernatural power which can be associated with people or with objects and which can be transmitted or inherited.

That doesn't cover the connotations of mana's link with the land on which the people in question live, however, but I'm not really an expert on such philosophies so I'll leave it at that. (I also can't perform any haka and don't play rugby. And I call myself a New Zealander...)

I think it's entered the fantasy lexicon via Magic: The Gathering, around 1993, which treats mana as... well, it's difficult to figure out, even from the novels; in theory, it's power drawn from land or power with the flavour of such land, but I've seen it referred to as 'memories of your homeland' and it can be drawn from individual creatures too. Anyway, that's understandably close to the original meaning of the word.

After Magic, however, mana becomes a general term for raw mystic power with none of the proper conotations.

Or am I neglecting an earlier incidence of mana that I'm unaware of?

And OT, I don't quite know how to pronuctuate mana, but Alyssa Milano? Wasn't she in Melrose Place or 90210 or something before Charmed? I've only actually seen one other thing with her in it, and that's some B-grade vampire movie from the mid-early 90s that probably falls under "Art" more than Horror. (Note heavy use of inverted commas.) Shadow of the Vampire, I believe it was called.

Let's just say that pronuctuation could be... interesting.

 

[Tonguez]

Of course it's not a real word. Alyssa Milano is a hottie, though. Can't think of anything she's done recently, except Charmed.

Yeah when I was a lad (I was 12 too) I had a crush on Sam from Who's the Boss and as she aged and became a witch well she just got hotter and hotter (yep during my Uni days I was constantly surfing for Alissa porn - but of course that is no more)

And didn't she do that awful Doopleganger movie

Aaron L
oh and Mana pretty much means 'Prestige, Power, Authority, the Ability to Achieve ones goals' (its the power which makes things do what they set out to do and is divine in origin). Mana Whenua (Mana from the Land) refers to a peoples connection with their place - that which makes Kiwis part of Godzone and Californians part of their own crazy world. If I were a Jedi I'd equate it to 'the Force'


Aeolius
So what does Manahmanah doodoodoododoo mean?

s/Lash
How could I forget - yet another fellow kiwi
and though I can't think of a source I'm sure Mana was being used in RPGS before Magic. I think it may have been used in a few early CRPGS um...

 

[JEL]

For some reason, I now have the song "Mahna Mahna" stuck in my head

Thanks. Now it's stuck in mine as well.

*goes off to find his old Muppets records*

 

[Steverooo]

Mana comes from the Hebrew for "What is it?", and is where the food from Heaven got its name. It was, indeed, used in RPGs before M:TG was dreamt up (RQ2, for one, I believe).

 

[Ranger REG]

Actually the Polynesian pronounciation (it is a Polynesian word is more mar-nah with both a's pronounced like the a in far or tar but with the second a clipped

(and yes I am a fluent speaker of Maori - a Polynesian language)

of course it entered RPG speak through English contact so it might have transformed from its original form

When I first saw it on Magic card, I thought they're using the Hawai'ian word, mana, which means mystical energy or power.

It is as Tonguez pronounced correctly, although I confessed to saying it as mah-nah (as in "ah")