Did GGG Purposely mispell Samnite?

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crunkatog wrote:

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Shagsbeard wrote:

Yup. My linguistics background is three courses in college and a bunch of years at Ren Faire. The Romans didn't "spell" like we do. That's a Victorian hang up. Shagsbeard is even based on one of the many spellings that Shakespeare used for his own name. If you study his original scripts, he would spell the same word differently even in the same play.

This is one of the points I bring up from time to time on my Minecraft server when the numpties start making fun of some poor dyslexic kid's spelling. "Hey bumstain, did you know that Shakespeare spelled his own name ~12 different ways at various times? So before you knock someone else's grammar, go write 40 plays that help define a modern spoken language and come back and we'll see."

Shakespeare was a fool who made up words as he went. Only after his death did his work become praised as good. Terrible example

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DarthSki44 wrote:

As an educator you should know better. Can we strive for a bit more than "meh it's close enough"?

I've met and known enough veteran teachers to know that 'meh, it's close enough' is their default mode after years of struggling to be a genuine teacher in a system largely designed to indoctrinate rather than educate.

Or maybe that was just Dead Poets Society? O Shagbeard My Shagsbeard. I imagine that scene swelled some long-dormant desire to Really Make A Difference in the hearts of many a jaded, world-weary pedagogue...

Funny it'd take this course, this weird little thread -- I've been listening to my favourite series of lectures on the History of the English Language by a fellow named Seth Lerer. They're pretty condensed (like 17 hours to cover everything from Pre-History to Tupac Shakur), but they do the job for as a refresher now and then. And naturally he is a big fan of spelling things correctly *within the current language being used*. 'Meh, it's close enough' is an interesting way that language evolves (although 'close enough to be understood by two parties not native to either's language' is probably more common), but it's rarely acceptable when it creates confusion, as has happened here, due to the fact that 'samite' is not just a typo, it's a word that means something other than what is evidently being portrayed here (gladiator helmet, likely based off the ones the Samnite gladiators wore).

So while it's true that spelling has changed over the centuries, the important thing is that we stick to a convention of spelling that doesn't foment mix-ups or miscommunication, as I think was the case here.

As for Shakespeare, that's a surname rather than the designation of an entire people; 'Shakespear' or 'Sheksper' still make more sense than, say, 'Chanese' or 'Amnerican'. And the name comes from a time when literacy was...sketchy and inconsistent. So of course there'd be multiple spellings of it, just as a bunch of people tried to pass off their own versions of his work as their own (because contrary to what someone else said here, he was VERY famous in his own lifetime) -- likely actors transcribing the play they perform incorrectly and inaccurately to make a quick buck on the side. They'd almost certainly not know how to spell 'Shakespeare' (largely encouraged by his own inconsistency). If you want evidence of this, check out the bad quartos. Although it was probably a mixture of that AND, as I said, Shakespeare himself just not being consistent because he didn't have to be.

Anyway, further (casual friendly) reading:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spelling_of_Shakespeare%27s_name

The wiki page notes that Sir Walter Raleigh, another giant of the era, was spelled a *bunch* of different ways.

21st Century English conventions and standards being what they are, I suspect even someone apt to play fast and loose with spelling for shits and giggles would still have to mark any spelling of the man's name other than 'Shakespeare' in a formal context as incorrect. ^_^

Because very few people are James Joyce or the Zodiac Killer.

PS it's still supposed to be samnite.

I'm genuinely delighted that a mere typo has generated this much fun discussion. Even when they fuck up, GGG deliver. Perhaps...especially when.

Its actually misspelled semite

The semites used this helmet to cross the desert on reindeers

I see what Jew did there.

Can we...not? Actually I'm amazed we made it four whole pages before someone went there. Amazed.

I also learned there is literally a thread in the bug section dedicated to spelling and typos.

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DarthSki44 wrote:

I also learned there is literally a thread in the bug section dedicated to spelling and typos.

Heh, I lived there for quite a while. Shit, over half my purpose in alpha was finding typos (fuck knows I'm no good at the game otherwise). There may or may not have been a slight increase in typos that reach full deployment since I uninstalled it. I deeply respect Rhys and Mark1 for keeping that thread relevant and significant either way.

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DarthSki44 wrote:

I also learned there is literally a thread in the bug section dedicated to spelling and typos.

Yeah I had no idea lol

you are all wrong its obviously meant to be semen and nothing else

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Shagsbeard wrote:

You all realize that the letters we use today weren't even in existence when these people were around.

You realize that the alphabet we use today is the Latin alphabet the Romans used?
And while lower case letters were indeed a much later invention, the upper case letters are the same.
So, the Romans would have written: SAMITE/SAMNITE, had they made the PoE Board Game back in their time.

they do typos