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The issue is not whether to change, but how fast and how specialized we become. Professions have long histories of specialized speech that can't be understood by folks outside that subculture; government, military, scientists and engineers all have their own unique, incomprehesible dialects.
Peronsally, I don't do d00dspeak; I'm put off by it, regarding it as a lazy man's avoidance or 'proper' spelling and grammar. My bias comes from my rather advanced age and lack of texting. Those who favor it tend to be in the Twitter/cell phone of quick texting and thumb-busting personal communication devices, and for whom speed and limitations imposed by their communication devices make a shorthand highly desirable.
Like the military, our hobby has a tendency to develop new slang for weapons, tactics and techniques that elicit great emotion. Whether it's a nonmetallic painting technique for metals, a monstrous-creature heavy force composition, or the use of multiple identically equipped units, it's simply easier and quicker to identify them as NMM, Nidzilla or spam.
This is great as long as everyone understands the shorthand. We're getting to the point, though, where - especially for new players - an urban dictionary is a great idea.
As we become more and more specialized in our speech there is a danger that we become less and less tolerant of those who don't share our shorthand - who are not 'in' like 'we' are. That kind of arrogance is natural, and it works in professions that have long training periods or apprenticeships like the military, engineers and sciences. It can doom a hobby that needs to attract new players all the time to generate sales, which in turn drive the production of new 'official' content.
My two cents. That's pretty intuhlektuwall fer an Ork, duntcha think?
Warboss Gorhack
I don't mind if you want to use it where people expect it, but it is now spilling over into actual essays and schoolwork. That's like wearing ripped up jeans, no shirt, and flip flops to a job interview for an investment banker position.
40K is just another community with its own jargon. As you pointed out, this is not uncommon in other specialized areas of society. Just like in those specialized communities, jargon and abbreviations are fine with those who understand them, but there should be enough contextual information for a new person to eventually figure it out through multiple contacts with the word in that environment.
Thats were I started but then when I started playing World of Warcraft things changed for me since most people in that talk with abbreviations. I stoped the game and came back after a couple of months and half the stuff I couldnt understand becuase i was out of the loop.
I catch myself now when I type for essays doing txt or :). Even when I may type something that I laugh at in an essay, I end up having to backspace the LOL.
I think alot of it is that when people do essays they dont think about the full letters if they are used to doing the leet speek typing. This kind of thing I can understand, but when someone is suddenly saying OMFG or lol in a converstaion to someone else (in person). Thats when its like, ok come now your not typing you can talk cant you?
I do understand using words like Nidzilla to describe an army but to say csm.. thats lazy.
devolve
Saying that something is "Primered" when you mean it has been primed.
Saying that a model is under or over "Costed" when referring to points value.
Talking about an army that is close combat "orientated".
All of these are pretty common terms that wargamers hear and use on a daily basis, yet completely go against the rules of grammar.
But what is wrong with costed? Cost is a verb that means "to apply a price to" mongst other meanings. A grocer needs to "cost" the items in his shop. The verb "price" is the neologism here; cost is the older form.
Similarly my father works as a quantity surveyor and his job is primarily the "costing" of various building materials i.e. contacting different suppliers to find out what prices they charge(American)/what their costs(British) are.
Cost is a perectly legitimate verb and can be conjugated as such, to cost, costing, costed, will cost.
Told my friends, If the (IM's, text messages) are not full American words, then I will ignore them.
Same amount of characters, but it's got more smile.
Evolution would imply that it improves the effectiveness of communication, when a lot of the time this isn't true. When you have to figure out what I mean when I tell you my KK BW w/ 3 BS dropped off 5 MANs & a MAWB w/ CS/S, I am not communicating effectively. At all. And hiding behind the claim that I'm 'being more efficient' is a load.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/7/21/
Languages change and evolve and adapt. It's how we got from Latin to French.
This column simply reveals that you have discovered the way language changes without being taught it in school. It's all covered by the field of linguistics, and the things you discuss have been looked at in detail by linguistic scholars for many many years.
Everyone uses in-jokes and words and phrases amongst their friends. It's called an "idiolect", and we all have one. What you'r talking about here is called a "sociolect", and it's a specialised set of technical jargon and phrases that is used by one specific community. You probably have several sociolects. If I talk on here about IG, CSM, Mathammer, SoB, Fluff, everyone knows what I'm on about. But if I start using my work sociolect, and talk about VAK, KS3, KS4, AOi and AOii, as well as using words like kinaesthetic, Bloom's taxomony, plenary, AFL, I imagine you'll wonder what I'm on about while everyone at work knows exactly what I'm referring to.
Language is as much a part of our identity as anything else. It's why "purists" hate change; at a very primal, subconscious level, they often see it as an attack on them.
Just go with it, and embrace change :)
It's how you time is happening.
Unless the newcomer speaks in lolcat. In which case, destroy them for the good of the species.
But... Let me see if I get you correctly....
There is a difference between 'meta game' and 'non meta game'.
non meta game - My friend and I agree to play a game. We make up army lists without knowing what the other person's army is.
meta game - My friend and I agree to play a game. Earlier that day, my other friend told me that my opponent would be bringing Tyranids. So now, I know his army, but he doesn't know mine, and we make lists before playing each other.
That is the most simple, basic explination for what a meta is. If you have ever played any role playing game, especially DnD, you'll know what a meta gamer is for sure...
It's nothing pretentious, it's actually quite literal.
I cannot say that I am immune to this either. Shame on me.
Back in the 17/1800's, linquists were in an uproar that the word "impact" was beginning to be used to mean "physically strike," which, of course, sounds bizarre by today's standards.
I told him that Lootas had loadsa dakka.
And by fags, I mean those dang @$!* [insert army you hate the most here] who are always ruining your game.
haha, that was a good episode.
The one thing I hate the most is text-speech online. Don't mind the abbreviations, although some of 'em require the Capt' Crunch secret decoder ring to figure out.
A meaning of a lot of this stuff can be derived contextually, but people need to be mindful of what they're doing. I like to use the full term once before I start abbreviating.
To me, the acronym just didn't make sense. There are only two types of Grey Knights, terminators and normal. Terminators are GKT's, that's easy and makes sense. Why we need to refer to PAGK's instead of just normal GK's is beyond me.
Power Armored Grey Knights are to Grey Knights as Tactical Marines are to Space Marines. One is a specific unit, the other is a army. And 'Power Armored Grey Knights' is a bit much to type more than once or twice in a row.
It should also be noted that 'Grey Knights' is a special rule in the DH Codex, and there is a specific subset of the rules for 'Grey Knights' which only apply to 'Grey Knights in Power Armor' and not their Terminator sporting elders. Specifically, Grey Knight Terminators don't get True Grit.
I felt so silly asking what they meant, even though I'd never been here before (or any 40k related blog/forum site). It certainly put a brick wall between people who just play the game every so often, and those who also read up on all the latest tactics and trends on the net.
I will always be bothered, however, when people use posessive apostrophies to denote plurality. Idiots. Everything else I don't really have much of a problem with.
I do live the doggy-deathstar thing.
Cats are so cute!
I'm not sure if you've noticed, but you're on the internet. Complaining about poor spelling is like complaining that Tuesday follows Monday.
Unless its between two fine ladies ;)
For example: "alfdk sfdjqqp kwfpqo lkskasdf" is not a unique writing style for saying "Hello, how are you?", it's me mashing the keyboard. Saying: "Hlelo" is not a unique writing style for saying "Hello".
Honestly. Murkans.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merkin
*Reaches for the bottle*
Spacegoats!
My local group, well, most of us, don't even like the term 'count as'. For us, who many have been playing since the late 80's the term 'count as' describes something natural and normal, just a part of the game.
One of us will show up with, lets say, marine models, and just say, "hey, these are going to be Blood Angels today" And no one bats an eye, well, not 'no one', but most of us don't even think twice and just play the game.
Yeah, here in California, I've never heard anyone use the term beardy. Cheesy's where it's at around here.
absolutlely not
Cheesey and beardy are slighty different however, Cheesey are more powerlists that exploit powerful units straight from the codex with no real synergy....Beardy i believe is more of a knowledgable based abuse of said units, so multiple holo falcons containing firedragons with re-roll saves due to farseer proximity in 4th edition.
"WTF! Check the BRB for RAW, noob! Your made of fail" - average online comment :P
Here's the Carnifex List:
http://shiftedmatrix.com/index.php?/Tabletop-Ga...
And here's the Crisis Suit List:
http://shiftedmatrix.com/index.php?/Tabletop-Ga...
Here's the Carnifex Link:
http://shiftedmatrix.com/index.php?/Tabletop-Ga...
We'll see if anyone cares enough to populate it with useful content.
http://w40kslang.wikia.com/wiki/Warhammer_40k_S...
I think it also adds flavor to the game when people call things what they are. I like to hear, "I'm firing a frag missle at your warrior squad" instead of "I'm dropping a small pie plate on those guys." When you call every template weapon a pie plate, it makes all the weapons in the game sound the same and takes away flavor.
Playing against people who are WAY too into the fluff of the game when you've made it clear you're really not into the fluff is annoying too. When I say, "I don't really a read alot of the fluff," I'm not inviting you to tell me your armies backstory. IIf I want to know about Sergeant Whatshisface's last stand, I'll ask.
don't worry, it took me a while to figure out too ;)
Can't we all just agree to say MEq or ME instead? Would make it much easier to remember!
there is also GeQ(Guard eQuivalent). Usually used like this: "Inferno Bolts are great anti-MeQ weapons, but pretty much useless against anything else." That is, Inferno Bolts rock against Space Marines and Necrons, but not against much else.
[/sarcasm]
As for 40k. Well, we have had slang in it since the early days. It's just getting a little thicker now that 40k is going more main stream.
Moreover this meta-vocabulary exists as a Rite of Passage for new players who, in my experience, enjoy exploring and learning the lingo as part of their initiation to the community. I find that even I, a relatively experienced player, enjoy learning new terms that makes my understanding of the game seem more sophisticated.
Language evolving is is growth to include new ideas and concepts, especially those with flavor, i.e. nidzilla, mech list, etc.
Language degenerating is when people add nonsensical suffixes just as "-orz" and think they are sounding descriptive rather than juvenile, or turning verbs into nouns and mistakenly thinking they are clever..."You are fail."
I made a joke to a friend once who was stuck in traffic that she "failed her pinning check" but of course she totally didn't get it.
Or you could just yell SPEAK ENGLISH POINDEXTER! Whenever someone uses elitist gamer slang on you. It's easier than reading a wiki.
I'd like a wiki too so I can understand what other net people are saying...
Sometimes it really sucks being Australian online. All our humour is based on sarcasm and dry delivery, so whenever I make a joke people take it literally. :(
Edit:
Woops, I think I miss read your first post, I thought you said "Or you could just SPEAK ENGLISH POINDEXTER!", my bad.
The only group that uses abreviations and made up reference words a lot are Tau players in my experience. With things like Deathrain, Helios and Fireknife representing various Crisis Battlesuit builds. Those names are much harder to remember than las/plas which is pretty darn obvious.
That's a bit harsh. I thought he wrote a nice article.
It's the same in Warhammer 40K. I got into the hobby about 2.5 years ago and I had hardly any trouble adapting to the language that I was reading. Sure there were a lot of new words to describe all the model types, but that was part of the fun of it all.
The only slightly annoying part of it was abbreviations which could be tricky sometimes, but all I had to do was ask if I couldn't figure them out.