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<blockquote data-quote="Wofano Wotanto" data-source="post: 9357349" data-attributes="member: 7044704"><p>If you want to have some fun with misunderstandings and unintentional insults/accusations, consider the fact that <a href="https://thecontentauthority.com/blog/berk-vs-burke" target="_blank">berk and burke are homonyms with very, very different meanings</a>. While IRL burke is a verb, it's not hard to imagine a fantasy setting where it becomes a noun ("one who burkes, ie a murderer and body snatcher") over time, and the noun berk might similarly drift into an adjectival form like berking.</p><p></p><p>A sufficiently farcical game might wind up including a line like "That berking lunatic burked some berk that interrupted us burking the guy we were actually paid to collect and now we've got to find some berk to take the second piece of merchandise off our hands fast." Not quite to the level of the Smurfs, but still fraught with potential for confusion. Even more so if you layer on some Cockney rhyming slang - subbing in work, perk, jerk, murk, etc. - to make the argot really opaque to outsiders.</p><p></p><p>Of course, all that assumes your fantasy language in use works a great deal like English (as they often do for some reason). You can get milk further confusion if there are other homophones in commonly-used foreign languages, eg "burkk" is low Dwarven for "seller of meat pies" and "berque" is Elvish for "procurer" or something. "I know a burkk down in Little Hell Town who might buy fresh product from us, works the corner 'cross from that knife-eared berque Grinning Meliel and her girls. We'll have to wait till he closes down for the night though, he's not berk enough to do the deal in front of his customers."</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Wofano Wotanto, post: 9357349, member: 7044704"] If you want to have some fun with misunderstandings and unintentional insults/accusations, consider the fact that [URL='https://thecontentauthority.com/blog/berk-vs-burke']berk and burke are homonyms with very, very different meanings[/URL]. While IRL burke is a verb, it's not hard to imagine a fantasy setting where it becomes a noun ("one who burkes, ie a murderer and body snatcher") over time, and the noun berk might similarly drift into an adjectival form like berking. A sufficiently farcical game might wind up including a line like "That berking lunatic burked some berk that interrupted us burking the guy we were actually paid to collect and now we've got to find some berk to take the second piece of merchandise off our hands fast." Not quite to the level of the Smurfs, but still fraught with potential for confusion. Even more so if you layer on some Cockney rhyming slang - subbing in work, perk, jerk, murk, etc. - to make the argot really opaque to outsiders. Of course, all that assumes your fantasy language in use works a great deal like English (as they often do for some reason). You can get milk further confusion if there are other homophones in commonly-used foreign languages, eg "burkk" is low Dwarven for "seller of meat pies" and "berque" is Elvish for "procurer" or something. "I know a burkk down in Little Hell Town who might buy fresh product from us, works the corner 'cross from that knife-eared berque Grinning Meliel and her girls. We'll have to wait till he closes down for the night though, he's not berk enough to do the deal in front of his customers." [/QUOTE]
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