Sending and Language

[Theo R Cwithin]

I would argue that the intent was that it could send a short message, and that the exact word count was only given because it isn't clear how short a "short message" is.

I agree that this is really the case. I looked back at the spell and noted it's not even "language-dependent"! (In 3e, at least. It even works for communication with creatures of INT 1.) So it doesn't really matter what language the sending is "transmitted" in because it gets "translated" into the receiver's language anyway, and vice versa with the response. The intent certainly seems to be only that it's a "short" (and maybe even "simple") message-- presumably of order 10 seconds, given the 25 word limit.

And that's the nice thing about counting syllables rather than words: a syllable in any language takes roughly the same time to say, so the time to utter a "short" message of 60 syllables will take roughly the same time, no matter the language. (For real-world languages, course. The Ents are screwed no matter what, sadly.)

 

[Cyronax]

Though my language, swedish, could certainly give them some competition in that area. Spårvagnskonduktörsuniformsjackedragkedja on you.

Wow .... I just sharded in my mind. That's an insane ... sentence.

I put it into Google translate and got the following:

Tram Conductor Uniform Jack Zipper

What does this mean? Is this like a famous long phrase in Swedish?

C.I.D.

 

[Starfox]

No, its just a compound noun. You can make more out of thin air.

Like stålverksontrollörstitelatur (titelature for steelworks inspectors) or flygvärdinekjolsreparatörsinstruktör (instructor for seamstresses repairing air hostess skirts) - I just came up with these but didn't do them as extreme. Titles are especially easy this way.

 

[Tuft]

No, its just a compound noun. You can make more out of thin air.

Like stålverksontrollörstitelatur (titelature for steelworks inspectors) or flygvärdinekjolsreparatörsinstruktör (instructor for seamstresses repairing air hostess skirts) - I just came up with these but didn't do them as extreme. Titles are especially easy this way.

What's even more fun - the meaning may change in Swedish when you do or don't combine the words. A famous example in Sweden is approximately rödhårig sjuksyster (red-haired nurse) versus röd hårig sjuk syster (red hairy sick sister), or rökfritt (non-smoking) vs rök fritt (smoke freely).

That means that you cannot combine willy-nilly to get the number of words under the limit...

 

[Edgewood]

Sending...the `twitter` of D&D.