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Now that wasn't very nice, ey ;)Why can't the English teach their children how to speak?It is not the English that are the problem here. It is us - the semi-literate Americans - that are at the root of this problem.
You're confusing it with joystick. Perfectly understandable. ;-)Ok, what the hell is a happy stick?Wand of cure light wounds.SEE I would so not ever have thought that as it means something else when I first heard it
i thought you meant "night stick" and stacking turn attempts to power your spells in a "Nanohaesque" fashion. turning "Holy Smite" into "Starlight Breaker" and nuking your enemy till she becomes your best friend.
Are you confused when a gish is clearly non-Gith?
Are you perplexed at what institution of martial training the school of "Sword and Board" was first born?
Did you slap the last person that asked you to use your happy stick?
Rise up and nuke gamerspeak before it pwns us all!
Woot! Grammar Nazi-ism has spread to gaming!
Also, Godwin, ftw!
I still call enchanted items, enchanted, too, even if (or, especially if!) it confuses people who don't remember when the enchantment/charm school encompassed putting enchantments on both people and items.
Also, we don't use dweomer enough anymore...
I'm sorry, I can't break out of my learned ways now; I'm getting too old.
I've used Gish for at least the last 4 years (when I first heard it on the WotC boards). I don't see any reason to stop now since there was never any opposition to its use until like 2 days ago.
I've been using "Sword and Board for the Lord" since 2e days. 20 years of gaming that I refuse to take back, tyvm.
And while I've never heard the term "happy stick", you can slap me with it all day long. I do like to make sexual innuendo about laying on hands and when someone touches me with a heal spell though. But my group is ok with that, so I won't stop.
I'm even fine with the expression "pwn". I was around when it first started picking up, when people still pronounced it "own". Now nobody can agree on how it's pronounced. My only problem is just that: Come up with whether it's:
"Own"
"Poon"
"Pown"
"???"
Seriously.
Professor Henry Higgins I presume?
You'll be sorry, but your tears'll be to late!
You'll be broke, and I'll have money;
Will I help you? Don't be funny!
Just you wait, 'enry 'iggins, just you wait!
Just you wait, 'enry 'iggins, till you're sick,
And you scream to fetch a doctor double-quick.
I'll be off a second later And go straight to the the-ater!
Oh ho ho, 'enry 'iggins, just you wait!
Ooooooh 'enry 'iggins!
Just you wait until we're swimmin' in the sea!
Ooooooh 'enry 'iggins!
And you get a cramp a little ways from me!
When you yell you're going to drown I'll get dressed
and go to town! Oh ho ho, 'enry 'iggins!
Oh ho ho, 'enry 'iggins! Just you wait!
One day I'll be famous! I'll be proper and prim;
Go to St. James so often I will call it St. Jim!
One evening the king will say:
"Oh, Liza, old thing,
I want all of England your praises to sing.
Next week on the twentieth of May
I proclaim Liza Doolittle Day!
All the people will celebrate the glory of you
And whatever you wish and want I gladly will do."
"Thanks a lot, King" says I, in a manner well-bred;
But all I want is 'enry 'iggins 'ead!"
"Done," says the King with a stroke.
"Guard, run and bring in the bloke!"
Then they'll march you, 'enry 'iggins to the wall;
And the King will tell me: "Liza, sound the call."
As they lift their rifles higher, I'll shout:
"Ready! Aim! Fire!"
Oh ho ho, 'enry 'iggins,
Down you'll go, 'enry 'iggins!
Just you wait!
Ok, what the hell is a happy stick?Wand of cure light wounds.SEE I would so not ever have thought that as it means something else when I first heard it
Personally, I use it to refer to my Earthbreaker. Caused some confusion with gamers who only knew the CLW Wand reason and not the traditional Linnorm Kings name for such a mighty instrument of destruction.
Are you confused when a gish is clearly non-Gith?
Are you perplexed at what institution of martial training the school of "Sword and Board" was first born?
Did you slap the last person that asked you to use your happy stick?
Rise up and nuke gamerspeak before it pwns us all!
I started calling "gish"es "Arcane Warriors" in another thread - I think its catching on.
I'm fairly sure "Sword and Board" is a peasant's form of weaponplay.
I did.
Absolutely not, sir.
Why can't the English teach their children how to speak?It is not the English that are the problem here. It is us - the semi-literate Americans - that are at the root of this problem.
You're all children of England now...but you're right about the semi-literate part...and possible Canada.
And 8th Dwarf, take that keening guttersnipe out of my earshot, this instance!
Times have changed, our kids are getting worse. They won't obey their parents and just want to fart and curse!
Everyone sing along!
Your trickery and obfuscation will not deceive us!
The Great White North is the source of all our world's problems!
You think you've got it bad up there! Well down here we've got Shoggoths and other alien horrors! By the blood of our people are you're lands kept safe!
I'm unfamiliar with Imba. Toon I'm only used to hearing in reference to WoW.My personal least favourites: "toon" and "imba".
"pls help me with my toon my dm says my old toon is imba but its not"
I've never heard it before either.
Imbalanced? Or rather 'unbalanced?'
If that's right, the kid who wrote that needs to be taken out of the gene pool.
I'm unfamiliar with Imba. Toon I'm only used to hearing in reference to WoW.My personal least favourites: "toon" and "imba".
"pls help me with my toon my dm says my old toon is imba but its not"
I've never heard it before either.
Imbalanced? Or rather 'unbalanced?'
If that's right, the kid who wrote that needs to be taken out of the gene pool.
Yup:
I'm fine with WoW creating its own terminology — those players have to orchestrate tactics very quickly. Jargon is inevitable.
It does sadden me to see terms like "DPS" get carried over to the tabletop hobby though. They could at least convert it to rounds.
My issue with this kind of speech isn't a moral one, I think they're perfectly fine jargon terms... but when you use them in the wrong context (e.g. a messageboard for a different game entirely) you run the risk of people not understanding you at all. Ah well.
Are you confused when a gish is clearly non-Gith?
Are you perplexed at what institution of martial training the school of "Sword and Board" was first born?
Did you slap the last person that asked you to use your happy stick?
Rise up and nuke gamerspeak before it pwns us all!
I started calling "gish"es "Arcane Warriors" in another thread - I think its catching on.
I'm fairly sure "Sword and Board" is a peasant's form of weaponplay.
I did.
Absolutely not, sir.
I like Spellthane, been using it.
I hate the term sword and board. It always makes me think of a fighter with a surf board.Isn't it of Renaissance fair origins?
You could be right. I didn't realize it was used outside of tabletop gaming - I thought it was WotC trying too hard to be clever. The first time I heard the term was when it was used in the lead up to 4e by WotC.
I hate the term sword and board. It always makes me think of a fighter with a surf board.
Yeah, I was fine with it until it became the slogan for 4e (along with the ad nauseum statements of "Grapple... I'm Looking At You!" -- as if "Grapple" was the name of a particularly well-endowed swimsuit model).
Now they've both been reduced to meaningless catch-phrases through gratuitous overuse.
It is not the English that are the problem here. It is us - the semi-literate Americans - that are at the root of this problem.
Good heavens! The English aren't to blame?!? Where do you think we get the tendency from? I just thank my lucky stars that rhyming slang managed to stay relatively confined to particular subcultures or we'd never know what the blazes anyone else was talking about.
Why is our children not learning?
Because we are:
Not teaching them.
Giving them more access to more people with less grasp of the English language.
Giving them The Internet.
These things and more are causing this. It's called a meme, and in true memetic fashion, it's gone fully viral.
What can we do to stem the tide? Not much. I am, however, all in favor of trying.
Charlie Bell
(Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, Adventure Path, Campaign Setting, Companion, Battles Case, GameMastery Maps Subscriber)
Well, I'll agree that gish has lost its original particular meaning. It's kind of sad when somebody talks about a gish without knowing wtf a gish actually is (a githyanki f/m). Happy stick still makes me smile for every d8+1 (and it's $CHEAP$). Sword-and-board is hardly recent, or even originally D&D. Seems like I hear it most from SCA fighters.
Some terms do bother the bejeezus out of me though. MMO terms in a tabletop game: DPS, toon (your character is SPECIFICALLY NOT A CARTOON), pally, mob, and the like. Some MMO terms in D&D don't bother me: DoT, nuke, ding. Somehow they just fit. Curiously, D&D terms in MMOs never bother me: NPC, GM, XP, OOC, roll a character, etc.
Pwn has passed into common usage, as has uber. Love em, hate em, doesn't matter, they're here to stay. Pwn I like, because to me it's evocative: I think about headshots. Uber less so because it makes me think about munchkins, and it rhymes with goober. If something can be described as uber I probably don't like whatever it is. Fail is starting to get old really fast... it's best used sparingly or it completely loses its impact.
I like even better though portmanteaux like curbstomp and skulldrag, because they supply such concrete imagery.
Are you thinking of Lady Gaga's "disco stick"?Ok, what the hell is a happy stick?Wand of cure light wounds.SEE I would so not ever have thought that as it means something else when I first heard it
If ya guys really want to know I know it from 2 things both more then 11 years ago
1: Happy stick a joint, laced with something else
2: A dick, dildo or stap-on
You asked
Patrick Curtin
(Pathfinder Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Roleplaying Game, Campaign Setting, Companion, Battles Case Subscriber)
Why is our children not learning?
Because we are:
Not teaching them.
Oh were teaching them, but now the standards are Lowest Common Denominator. We can't make anyone feel bad if they can't keep up after all.
Giving them more access to more people with less grasp of the English language.
English is a constantly-evolving concept. One person's slang acronym ("OK") becomes the next generation's shorthand for assent. In twenty years, WTF and LOL will be perfectly reasonable words in the English language.
Giving them The Internet.
The Internet is one of the most transformative tools Humankind has yet to create, next to perhaps fire or the wheel. We are in the midst of its unfolding true potential, so it can seem scary, but it has already made an impact on almost every facet of our lives. It is pure information, and information can be used for good or ill, like any tool. I know I already gave my encyclopedias and dictionaries away. Our children will have access to data at a gesture that it once took lifetimes of memorization to achieve. It's as big a shift as going to the written word rather than oral histories. Our children are growing up with computers as a fait accompli. They will be more comfortable in the emerging Noosphere than we can ever be.
These things and more are causing this. It's called a meme, and in true memetic fashion, it's gone fully viral.
What can we do to stem the tide? Not much. I am, however, all in favor of trying.
The kids will be fine. They aren't us, which is always scary, because older generations always hate to see their culture become obsolete, but we are on a cusp of some very transformative times if can manage to keep from lobbing nukes at each other for a few decades.
