Today's word - aquiline

[LoD]

I have always considered "curt" to convey a purposefully brief or sharp word or movement.  It's then for my PC to decide whether the source of the brevity was simple efficiency, a hurried or distracted state, an insulting or rude gesture, or perhaps fueled by a barely contained emotion such as hatred or outrage.

If you use the word curt, just consider that other PC's might view that action/speech as purposeful and be guessing at its source.  Perhaps you mean to flavor its use with contextual hints at why you're being short, or prompting them to take notice and perhaps inquire if anything is wrong, or if they disagree with you.  As others mentioned, you can't simply redefine the English language and say that curt means short, and I think short means polite, so it was intended to be polite. If you want a nod to be polite, then use polite or any other combination of words that would better convey that meaning.

And you can easily be "rude" with a nod.  Consider any scene in a movie where some subordinate officer is trying to reason with an outrageous superior to the point where the superior finally bangs his fist on a desk and says something like, "That will be -all- captain."  At this point, the subordinate has basically been dismissed and told to STFU -- all he has left at his disposal to express his discontent is an expected nod of respect/salute.  This might be the perfect time to snap off a curt nod to demonstrate your purposefully brief demonstration of respect -- which could easily imply that you don't respect his decision, nor the way that he/she handled you.

-LoD

[hyzhenhok]

Well if you consider it contextually, you have to take the next step, and define the context. What if it's someone you don't know, who isn't indicating his mood to you, but merely speaking curtly?

You ask the green-eyed stranger, in sirihish, "Have you seen the one-armed man who killed that templar down the block just now?"
Curtly, the green-eyed stranger says to you, in sirihish, "No, I haven't seen him."

Now, in this context, how should MY character perceive it? Is the green-eyed stranger being merely brief in his answer, because he doesn't have anything else to say? Or is he being rudely abrupt in his tone, as though trying to get me to leave him alone so he can tell the murderer, who just happens to be his best friend, that he's been identified?

How am I supposed to consider the context? I mean there are people who do things curtly ALL the time. So when they really -are- trying to be snappish and rude, you'd never know the difference. I don't think they do either. And that's the point I'm trying to make.

As long as you don't hinge the entire outcome of the interaction on the single word, it's fine to interpret it as a slightly rude gesture. I want to apologize for overreacting, because I read into your original post and inferred something that wasn't there.

I don't think I've ever "em nods curtly to ~templar/noble" myself either, because even though I don't mean it to be blatantly rude when I do use it, I know it's not exactly the most gracious or deferent gesture either.

[Lizzie]

Accepted, and returned. I don't have many "pet peeves" with regards to sentence structure or grammar, and god knows I'm not a pro. I make plenty of mistakes, and I get lazy about things as well. But just certain things grate on my nerves for some reason. Seeing people use "curt" when they really only intend for the observer to see him moving his head just slightly up and down, or speaking quickly, rather than rudely..or using only a couple of words, rather than being abrupt and cutting someone off...

that's one of my pet peeves. Another is the whole "similar words, spelled differently, pronounced the same, meaning different things" thing (is that homonym? there's me, being too lazy to look it up ).

There vs. their vs. they're
Its vs. it's

Oh! And..if a singular noun is made plural with an "s" at the end, it does NOT get an apostrophe! The apostrophe between a singular noun and an "s" is to denote that something belongs to something else.

I have three brothers.
I am my brother's keeper.
I am also my other brother's keeper, which makes me my brothers' keeper.
(if it's a plural noun, with an s at the end, then it gets an apostrophe, but no additional s).

[Sanvean]

I seriously *heart* this thread and thank everyone for keeping it civil.

[spawnloser]

New word fun...

LAY vs. LIE:

Difference:  LAY requires an object, LIE does not.

You LIE down on the sofa, you LAY the book down on the table.
You LIE down on the bedroll, you LAY out the corpse of your friend.
You LIE down, collapsing in exhaustion, but LAY lay yourself out to rest.

[MarshallDFX]

Ex.  I so totally got lied last night.

[hyzhenhok]

I would prefer if we could steer this thread away from grammarian pet peeves and back towards clarifying obscure or fancy vocabulary.

EDIT: More reading confrontational stuff into posts. Blah me.

[Lizzie]

I have a general one: confusing hues and shades in the color spectrum. Example:

The emerald-eyed woman is standing here.

look emerald

Blah blah blah, jade colored eyes, blah blah blah.

Emerald is not jade. Jade is not emerald. Both are shades of green, but they are not synonymous. If a southern templar asked me to describe her, and it got down to the part about her eyes, would I say they're the same shade as the official city's cross? Or would I point at my emerald earring and say it's this color here?

Same goes for all hues/shades. If you want to use two names to describe one color, please, PLEASE don't just pick at random from a thesaurus. Often the thesaurus will give types of *similar* things..but will differ in translation to the extreme. Color wheels can be helpful, there are several online and I think there is or was a link on the armageddon website to some kind of color chart. I remember someone linked it on the GDB awhile back.

[flurry]

Callous (what Zalanthans tend to be) and callus (what they might get on their hands) have different meanings.
A Tuluki might strive to be discreet, which is not the same as discrete.

I think my favorite typo is 'scared' in place of 'scarred'. Bonus points if it's in an sdesc.

[Eloran]

Callous (what Zalanthans tend to be) and callus (what they might get on their hands) have different meanings.

Thank you for posting this. It's always bugged me, but not bad enough that I'd typo people.

[Lizzie]

Although, if you are using the adjective form of the word to describe the hardened pads on your knees, then the spelling "calloused" is correct.

Callus is correct for the noun. Calloused for the adjective to describe the affliction of having calluses. Weird shit but true.

[Bluefae]

To Eloran, re: "aquiline features" - Hence the idea of a range, or a degree.  =)  Now, which features do or do not make the cut is certainly open to debate being inherently subjective, but I think the point about a written short-hand stands.  From my experience, it's preferable to have six or seven lines of solid, clear description for one's critter than a screen-filler (no offense intended to those who enjoy the mammoth main descriptions - tastes vary ).

To Lizzie:  As a repeat offender, I have to say in defense that using the same word again, again, and . . . again makes me feel like I'm too repetitive for my "audience".  I understand (And appreciate!) the need for consistency, but I think most folks allow you some "wiggle room" for artistic license.  Even still, I do try to stay within a range of related shades (teal might become viridian in the odd emote, but isn't likely to make it all the way to emerald). 
     Thankfully, I've never been in the key-word situation you site.  In that case, my instinct would be to use whatever is in the person's short description or main description.  I guess I'm still naive enough about the game to believe that none of the people I've played with would deliberately obfuscate key-words for a purely OOC advantage. 

[jcljules]

To Eloran, re: "aquiline features" - Hence the idea of a range, or a degree.  =)  Now, which features do or do not make the cut is certainly open to debate being inherently subjective, but I think the point about a written short-hand stands.  From my experience, it's preferable to have six or seven lines of solid, clear description for one's critter than a screen-filler (no offense intended to those who enjoy the mammoth main descriptions - tastes vary ).

Couldn't agree more with this. I love concise mdescs more than anything--I feel like there are so many PCs in the world to remember that an mdesc should be short and distinctive. I only remember long mdescs if they belong to PCs I see every day.

[FantasyWriter]

I've seen several 'sinewy' sdesc, but in the mdesc the person was either thin or lanky.
A google image search for 'sinewy build' pulled up Hugh Jackman, as the first popular choice.

    sin·ewy
Pronunciation:
    \ˈsin-yə-wē also ˈsi-nə-\
Function:
    adjective
Date:
    14th century

1: full of sinews: as a: tough, stringy <sinewy meat> b: strong <sinewy arms>

[Lizzie]

Oh yeah there are lots of different ways to describe a color. Jade -is- green afterall, and another word for green is verdant. Turquoise, can be a pale aqua to a deep blue-green. Pink comes in all flavors, from pastel to fuscia. It's just when someone says "pastel pink" in their main description, but in their short description it says "fuscia," that I cry foul. They're both pink. But they are worlds apart.

[InsertCleverNameHere]

Okay, when -I- think aquiline, those two women are not at all what comes to mind. They might have slightly long features but, overall, not so much. These are much more true to the meaning of the word, imo.

And a dude thrown in, just cuz.


AAAND, I'm with Lizzie about "Not every color shade is interchangeable".

[MarshallDFX]

Here's one:

AMBIVALENT
1: simultaneous and contradictory attitudes or feelings (as attraction and repulsion) toward an object, person, or action
2: continual fluctuation (as between one thing and its opposite)

INDIFFERENT
1: marked by impartiality : unbiased
2: that does not matter one way or the other b: of no importance or value one way or the other

Ambivalent would mean that you're torn between alternativies.  One the one hand {blah}, but on the other hand {blah blah}.
Indifferent would mean that it really does not matter either way.

I find that ambivalent is often being used as a replacement for indifferent.  EDIT:  I also mean in general, it's not necessarily a epidemic, IG.

[brytta.leofa]

I find that ambivalent is often being used as a replacement for indifferent.

Please, for the love of all that is gritty, don't use either word south of Luir's Outpost unless you can read sirihish and own pretty things.

[Gimfalisette]

'Nakki commoners are never ambivalent or indifferent, because that implies actually having a choice.

[MarshallDFX]

The grungy, commoner man shrugs ambivalently.

[Fathi]

This might be something that people disagree with, but it absolutely drives me crazy to see people pair the word "neutral" with emotional modifiers.

Neutral, by definition, means not taking a side or not displaying any particular characteristics.

You cannot do something with "sinister neutrality!"

[flurry]

That reminds me of something I used to see a lot in another game. Granted, the emoting options were much more limited, but there was this one character who used to always do everything "silently", including smiling silently. It's tempting to respond to that with "em In a deafening cacophony, @ smiles back."

[Eloran]

That reminds me of a certain character who did everything firmly.

[Lizzie]

And softly.


>98/98; 147/155; 91/101> Nodding softly, the vermilion-eyed cascade-haired maiden says, in sirihish, "Oh yes Sir, I can do anything you'd like."

>98/98; 147/155; 91/101> Nodding loudly in return, you tell the vermilion-eyed cascade-haired maiden, in sirihish, "Good. Start painting my walls. Here's a brush."

[MarshallDFX]

This thread is making me extremely self-conscious.