Who is this person, and why do they not know what a gish is?

[pawsplay]

And this tiny subset (numbering one) of that small subset had never heard of the term "gish" until relatively recently, here on these boards, and was under the impression - now shown to be wrong - that it was a slang term for any fighter-type/wizard-type multiclass.

And as fighter-wizards probably don't need their own term to describe them, I can live without the word if everyone else can.

Lanefan

AFAIK, the term appeared a couple of years ago on the wizards.com boards in the Character Optimization forum, where a short, handy term was desired to avoid having to type FMU every time. A few posters found a term that was only slightly longer and much less intuitive, and popularized it. As the CO board tends (or tended) to be a small, intimate crew, and some of the proponents were well-known and liked minmaxers, the term flourished with newbies to that board area. From there, it slowly but relentlessly invaded the other wizards.com boards, where it still lingers like a faint trace of mildew that will never quite go away. Sometimes it colonizes other gaming boards, presumably because some people mistake it for a popular term. Even on the CO board, it survived only by default; many people disliked it there and presumably still dislike it.

I would estimate the number of people using that word in any sort of conversation in a given month is probably less than a hundred.

 

[Hussar]

AFAIK, the term appeared a couple of years ago on the wizards.com boards in the Character Optimization forum, where a short, handy term was desired to avoid having to type FMU every time. A few posters found a term that was only slightly longer and much less intuitive, and popularized it. As the CO board tends (or tended) to be a small, intimate crew, and some of the proponents were well-known and liked minmaxers, the term flourished with newbies to that board area. From there, it slowly but relentlessly invaded the other wizards.com boards, where it still lingers like a faint trace of mildew that will never quite go away. Sometimes it colonizes other gaming boards, presumably because some people mistake it for a popular term. Even on the CO board, it survived only by default; many people disliked it there and presumably still dislike it.

I would estimate the number of people using that word in any sort of conversation in a given month is probably less than a hundred.

If we limited ourselves to words that are used in conversation by more than 100 people, we'd be having very short convo's.

There's TONS of jargon and straight up dictionary words that you will almost never hear spoken, yet might read from time to time.

Susserus. Just as an example.

I've never been on the Character Optimization boards at Wizards. Heck, I've only logged onto the forums at Wizards maybe a handful of times. Yet, I know what a Gish is. I've seen it here, I've seen it used on other boards as well. It's not a rare, arcane term like dweomer. It's been around.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Almost no local gamer* knows (or would know) what the hell a 'gish' is. A CD with songs on it, some might venture. And that would be that.

'Susserus'. . .? Nope, never heard of it.

* Except me, of course. I hang out on 'fora'. IOW, the same environments renowned for the overuse of such terms as 'trope' and 'verisimilitude'.

 

[pawsplay]

I've never been on the Character Optimization boards at Wizards. Heck, I've only logged onto the forums at Wizards maybe a handful of times. Yet, I know what a Gish is. I've seen it here, I've seen it used on other boards as well. It's not a rare, arcane term like dweomer. It's been around.

Google gives over 25k hits for dweomer versus 12k for CoDzilla, which also happens to be a fishing resort, for comparison.

EDIT: There's 2.65 million for gish, but of course wikipedia thinks that's the name of a Smashing Pumpkins album.

 

[megamania]

Have I heard of the word? Yes.


Did I know what it referred... guessed but not really certain.


Do I really care to use the term? nope.

 

[Herobizkit]

Does anyone know the actual etymology of "gish"... that is, how does one get the word "gish" from "githyanki fighter/magic-user"?

 

[The Green Adam]

Add me to the list of those who only recently heard of this.
(And,for the record: A) I hate that term, and B)I've been playing since 1E.)

QFT

Been playing 30 years or so and I don't think I've ever said or used the term Gish. So..this is some kind of slang abbreviation for a Githyanki of a certain class or something? We used to call Githyanki "Gith" or "Giths", what with there not being a 's' in the name and such.



AD

 

[Glyfair]

Does anyone know the actual etymology of "gish"... that is, how does one get the word "gish" from "githyanki fighter/magic-user"?

In their first appearance in the original Fiend Folio it is what they noted as being githyanki 4th level fighter/4th level magic-users.

I imagine the etymology is the sane as githyanki, githzerai and "zerth" (a githzerai 3rd level fighter/3rd level magic-user)...it came from the creator's imagination.

 

[Rabelais]

Didn't know what a Gish was in the original post, kinda have an idea now. Does it make me a bad player, or worse DM? God I hope not!

Crap! There goes my self esteem AGAIN!

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Not very impressive.

You're right, you're not very impressive. Expecting others to somehow magically know the meaning of a monosyllabic word which has zero resemblance to any common word and only a single indefinate similarity with a fictitious word used by a small number of hobbyists of an unusual hobby. I don't often say this about my fellow gamers, but wow, that's pathetically nerdy!