Big words!

[X-D]

How do you know they are using a big word?

No, really...the sirihish word for fundamental might be "click" Or the Allundean could be "Su". Just because the concept translates to a big word in English does not mean it is in another language.

Even on earth, some languages have single short words to name a concept that takes a couple sentences in English.

Others have very long ways of saying something you or I can do in 1-2 words.

And still others have a way of speaking that forces you to make large words because that is simply the way it works, Latin for example.

Remember, they are not speaking english, maybe when you See "The grungy man says in rinthi accented sirihish,"The fundamental methods to excavate a ditch is with a shovel." He said "Click click pop dig."

[brytta.leofa]

For the sake of intelligible storytelling, I think it's best to assume that characters whose speech is translated as high-falutin' English are conceived to be speaking high-falutin' Sirihish...and that them that isn't ain't.

[brytta.leofa]

Though I'm not sure where that leaves the dwarves.

[lordcooper]

Though I'm not sure where that leaves the dwarves.

They're still Scots with invisible (and untouchable) beards.

[X-D]

I do not agree, least not on words, but I would on style of speech.

Cause Ah think ya bein Fundamentally wrong in ya assum'n that.

Because my good man, your assumption is fundamentally flawed.

[brytta.leofa]

Because my good man, your assumption is fundamentally flawed.

I think you're overthinking this so much that you're wrong even though you're right.

As the sole translator of your character's words (if your character was real and speaking sirihish somewhere), you get a fair bit of creative license in order to express the full sense of what was said.  If your translation uses a noticeably stronger or weaker vocabulary than what we commonly encounter in real life, well, why?  What are you trying to convey when you type out your "say" command?  If you're merely expressing your personal preference for erudite speech, well, I submit that you're making things a little confusing.

If you prefer to translate everything into an average, everyday vocabulary level, whether you're playing a highblood noble or a scumbag rinthi, that's fine, of course...but why wouldn't you avail yourself of that extra expressive range?

The most natural interpretation of someone using unusually big words is that it's reflective of the PC's "real" speech.

[solera]

Though I'm not sure where that leaves the dwarves.

They speak Sirihish As a Second Language.

[Celest]

Then there's those commoners who can count well into the hundreds.
Problem is, when this happens I can't tell if the character has received some form of education or is being played poorly. (Don't get me wrong, I had no clue what one small meant until my second PC)
The usual reaction is just say (blinking) Huh?

I played a dumb rinther before who couldn't use big, fancy words at all. She'd try and botch them. Get easily confused. But she knew how to count easily, and her justification was that when you're starving on a semi-regular basis, and life is always a struggle for coin, you learn very quickly to count every single one and make sure each one lasts. In other words, the difference between fifteen and twenty five coins is a meal. Amongst intelligent, but uneducated people who handle money often, and end up counting various sums and weights (such as with drug dealers), they'll learn the basics pretty quickly. Being uneducated does not mean you're unintelligent, and being unintelligent does not mean that you're entirely incapable of understanding fundamental concepts.

That said, if other characters knowing how to count is bothering people, it seems to be either a situation where they have IC reason, or it's just suspension of disbelief for the sake of practicality.

[X-D]

How is it natural? I leave speech style to speech style and emotes myself.

If your PC is speaking in a highbrow style I leave it to you to explain that in the speech emotes or other emotes.

Or sentence structure since I assume when it is translated from sirihish to english it is comparable.

But the words themselves I assume nothing because I do not know if the sirihish form is a big word, or if it is considered by the people that speak it to be a big word and neither do you or anybody else.

27 syllable words might very well be the norm for lowlives and thieves, nothing says one way or another on that matter, maybe it is considered the height of society to use shorter words.

[Synthesis]

We're talking about players interpreting words spoken by characters, not characters interpreting words spoken by characters, X-D.

It is true that you (the player) can't interpret for your character whether any particular word that you (the player) see on the screen is large or not.  If we were stuck doing only that, we couldn't (in-character) comment on any sort of style of speech, because the entirety of it is behind a curtain of ignorance.

Given that, we sometimes -do- need to comment on styles of speech, in-character.  The only reasonable way of approaching this is that the speech you (the player) see coming out of another character represents both a) the content of the speech the player behind that character intends to convey and b) the style of the speech that the player behind that character intends to convey.  Otherwise, every time we wanted to convey style, we would be forced to do something like:  say (using very large words, some of which are borrowed from an ancient dialect that only master bards would be familiar with) Hi guys, what's up?.  That may be appropriate-ish, if you're every now and then waxing philosophical in-character.  However, it would be incredibly burdensome if every time your 'rinther spoke, you had to:  say (in a street-trash dialect) Hello, gentlemen.  I see that you're toting a fair amount of fineries through these alleys, here.  Unfortunately, I'm going to have to relieve you of their burden, else violence will ensue.

Thus, the natural, and simple thing is to infer both content and style from the text.  It's a common enough literary technique that I'm sure you're familiar with it, and really, it seems like you're being argumentative about it just to over-reach with a linguistic point that is valid, but misapplied.

[Riev]

Accents are already handled by the Accent Code that Armageddon has in place, any accents a player puts in are variations on how they talk.

As far as big words, what about someone that has a background of being a traveling merchant, or having TRAVELED with a merchant for a long time. Would they know words like 'price gouging' or 'studying the market prices' or even the idea of 'investments'?

[Barzalene]

I think a key thing to remember is that these people aren't illiterate because they're too stupid to learn. They are illiterate because literacy is illegal. So, they don't read things, and they don't write things down.

I think there's a lot of wiggle room with how your pc talks. Can you show where they are and where they come from and still use big words? If you can and you want to, do it.

I think that someone made a good point about technical terms and the jargon of advanced learning that goes beyond just an entertaining vocabulary. I might find it strange that your rinther knows what a fungible commodity is, unless you have a really good reason why they should. But if your rinther in general impresses me as being played as a rinther, I'd probably trust you the player.

What bothers me is when I do it. When I decide how my pc should talk, and then they talk differently. that's not good.

[perfecto]

Personaly I enjoy the diversity of our player base and their styles of play.  We're all different in age, we  all have different I.Q.'s, we've all been playing different lengths of time.  Some of us can dumb it down when we switch from playing an elf to a half-giant, some haven't been playing long enough to know how to.  Again, personaly speaking, I haven't run into a character in the last 2 RL years that I haven't enjoyed playing along side.

Spell things wrong
Kiss that guy by accident
Life goes on
Enjoy the game
Just my piece.

-edit-
All of your posts are valid and excelent points btw.  (except you Bleak one)

[BleakOne]

All of your posts are valid and excelent points btw.

Mine was neither valid nor excelent.

[IAmJacksOpinion]

First off, I want to point out that the first two pages of the "Big words!" thread had the shortest (typically one line) responses I've ever seen. Scroll back through it quick.

Secondly, though I agree that "antidisestablishmentarianism" may simply be pronounced "a" in Sirihish, I don't see that as a valid / playable argument. We damn well can't define the language, so to say that "this might be a small word" is moot. The only practical thing to do is to assume that big English words are big Sirihish words, and good English grammar is good Sirihish grammar. (Same goes for the other 5 or 6 languages players speak regularly.) I mean, these languages (especially in tribal RP) already boast an impressive dictionary of original slang and jargon.

On the subject of counting, I agree wholly with the "necessity" argument. Maybe they counted that stack of 500 sid ten times to make absolutely certain. And, uneducated =/= dumb or unresourceful. Think about that drug dealer. Chances are he can barely read, but out of necessity and practice, he can count. Maybe he can't multiply fractions, but he can sure as hell convert grams to 1/8ths of an ounce.

So, basically, for the sake of playability, I'm going to assume that the connotations of the English someone is using, parallel the connotations of the IG language. Also, if that eliminates the need to sit and try to translate players who speak like they're chewing a mouthful of rocks, I'm doubly supportive.

(Side note, Shakespeare used some big words and all the largely uneducated masses of England understood him a hell of a lot better than most high-school seniors.)

[Bilanthri]

(Side note, Shakespeare used some big words and all the largely uneducated masses of England understood him a hell of a lot better than most high-school seniors.)

Along with your side note: There was a fair amount of Shakespeare's writing that was over the head of the general, rotten-fruit crowd. That's how he got those box seats filled. But connotation and context does wonders for even the uneducated masses. And, so long as you throw in a sex joke now and again, your actors wont get pelted with produce.

Edit: A favorite example of this in humor is the constable character from "Much Ado About Nothing". He clearly is an uneducated lout who has a -very- poor vocabulary, but tries to use words he doesn't understand. I imagine the well-educated members of the audience would have found the character far more amusing than the common folk who, likely, also didn't understand the words he tries to use. (Michael Keaton does an excellent rendition of this character in the 1993 movie version)

[a strange shadow]

"Much Ado About Nothing"

I love that play so damn much.

[Intrepid237]

Maybe he can't multiply fractions, but he can sure as hell convert grams to 1/8ths of an ounce.

3.5

Swag.

[Shepard]

I learnt in my econ class that way way WAY back in the day counting wasn't as easy as we think...

Two traders would come together and use stones in order to count out a trade. They didn't have a concept of basic counting, so if I had sheep and you had corn, I would place 15 stones onto a table, you would put down 5 and we would go collect that many of each other's trade item.

We can do simple 25 + 9 in modern times, but back in the day, they'd need to sit down and use stones or a counting measure, and even then, they might not be able to give a word to the number - as such isn't a very important part of life to a hunter.

But this really depends on how far in history you are going back... And has nothing to do with the OP....

As for the use of big words, I let them go because I like to use them... and I tend to believe that if it is a big word in english, it is a big word in sirihish. Because we are seeing a translation of the words spoken... you can say I fell down the hill, or I tumbled down the hill. Tumbled is a bigger word techniqually, and as such it would be considered that in sirihish too...

I have no idea if any of that makes sense, so I'll tip my hat and move on.

[Barzalene]

When was this? And was this in a place that worked mostly on barter? In communities when everything was shared? I bet it's much harder to count if it only comes up once a year.

Zalanthas works in coins. Everything costs coins. People talk about how much things cost. People see coins exchanged all the time.

[BleakOne]

I choose to think characters who speak with big, fancy words are using similar big, fancy words in Sirihish or whatever language they're speaking.

As for counting, it would be far too annoying if the characters didn't know how to count high numbers. If they suddenly lost the ability to count beyond one to ten, I'd assume that the currency would change to match. With actual different coins for singles, Smalls, and Larges.

[Bilanthri]

When was this? And was this in a place that worked mostly on barter? In communities when everything was shared? I bet it's much harder to count if it only comes up once a year.

Actually, this was the basis for the development of cuneiform. So, it was not small communal groups, but what historians consider some of the first true city societies.

[Shepard]

When was this? And was this in a place that worked mostly on barter? In communities when everything was shared? I bet it's much harder to count if it only comes up once a year.

Actually, this was the basis for the development of cuneiform. So, it was not small communal groups, but what historians consider some of the first true city societies.

Nod. And I believe we are talking 3,400 B.C. - which is a hard to argue if Zalanthas is further or beyond that point of evolution - because without the proper raw materials we will never reach the information age (modern day). Can't compare Zalanthas to Earth - I keep forgeting that rule.

BUT - Zalanthas isn't earth, and Zalanthas is in the obsidian-age... and their entire economy makes little sense in the first place (a chip of obsidian is worhtless - can't be melted down to form a large chunk again for use - and they're financial system isn't really evolved enough to accept fiat money) - it's a game, it works, I smile when I play.

[Akaramu]

What X-D said.

We aren't speaking english in IC terms, so I generally assume that many english words have an IC equivalent that is realistic to use in the context of the gameworld. I don't think it's an issue unless some gritty Bynner starts speaking Shakespeare english or something silly like that.  

[Nao]

When was this? And was this in a place that worked mostly on barter? In communities when everything was shared? I bet it's much harder to count if it only comes up once a year.

Actually, this was the basis for the development of cuneiform. So, it was not small communal groups, but what historians consider some of the first true city societies.

Nod. And I believe we are talking 3,400 B.C. - which is a hard to argue if Zalanthas is further or beyond that point of evolution - because without the proper raw materials we will never reach the information age (modern day). Can't compare Zalanthas to Earth - I keep forgeting that rule.

BUT - Zalanthas isn't earth, and Zalanthas is in the obsidian-age... and their entire economy makes little sense in the first place (a chip of obsidian is worhtless - can't be melted down to form a large chunk again for use - and they're financial system isn't really evolved enough to accept fiat money) - it's a game, it works, I smile when I play.

I assume that Zalanthas was more developed earlier in it's history and while technology went back to stone-age levels, concepts like counting and money stuck around. I can't find anything to support this downfall in the docs though.

Edit: Found it

Scholars are fairly certain that Zalanthas was not always like this, but was once a lush, beautiful world that supported life in abundance. The exact history of the world is not known, but what is known is that long ago, there was an enormous empire called the Empire of Man. It is believed that this empire collapsed when a being known as the Dragon visited the world, causing chaos and disrupting the world in many ways.