What words can I use?

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lee-whiteout
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What words can I use?

Postby lee-whiteout » Mon Nov 16, 2020 7:40 pm

Cantr is at a weird place in time. We have motorcycles and cars, but no guns and the medicine is very underdeveloped (not that it doesn't work). Normally this doesn't bother me (I think it actually adds to the fun of the game), but I've got some questions about what words are available. Specifically things that are very tied to Earth. Like the word platonic, for instance--how can it exist in a world without Plato? I suppose I can suspend my disbelief for a moment there and assume there's some sort of translation. The problem I find is with word like "autistic". Clearly autistic people exist in Cantr, but would there be a word for it? And there's no diagnostic system, how would a character know they're autistic? I've decided to simply try to code my characters as autistic as much as I am able to, but I do want some sort of answer for this. how do others feel?
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Black Canyon
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Re: What words can I use?

Postby Black Canyon » Mon Nov 16, 2020 8:03 pm

I used to agonize over this very thing, but I admit that I've gotten much more casual as time went on. I now at least try to not use phrases that are way out there as far as cantr reality, such as "behind the eight-ball" or "spill the beans"... but I know that I slip now and then.
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Millhouse
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Re: What words can I use?

Postby Millhouse » Mon Nov 16, 2020 8:10 pm

There's actually quite a few characters (or at least used to) that role play as medical students or experts, and some focus on psychology. It can be kind of fun to play a neural atypical character trying to find answers to their ailment, if you can find a willing participant.

As for words, you'll find some leaway with most players for words that have long entered common use like "platonic" or "narcissistic". When it comes to specific medical maladies, you might find a little pushback depending on the disease. If your character had Lou Gerhig's disease, obviously it wouldn't make much sense to call it that in-game. I've seen characters with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder who go through their lives not calling it that. I've played sociopaths that openly use the word sociopath and nobody bats an eye at the use of the word. As long as it's not too extreme and especially if you role play a diagnosis, most players will not think it breaks their emersion.
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PaintedbyRoses
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Re: What words can I use?

Postby PaintedbyRoses » Tue Nov 17, 2020 2:04 am

1) There are so many things in Cantr that are inconsistent with the history of the world of Cantr that it would be impossible to list them. Plus, some things have to be exactly like RL while others are not at all consistent with RL. It can make your brain hurt. Don't think about them.

2) Every word we use in Cantr is derived from something in the real world that does not exist in or never happened in Cantr. Some of them are part of the game.

Take, for instance the piece of cooking equipment called the "gas barbeque." Etymology: "The word barbecue comes from the language of a Caribbean Indian tribe called the Taino. Their word for grilling on a raised wooden grate is barbacoa. The word first appeared in print in a Spanish explorer's account of the West Indies in 1526, according to Planet Barbecue." So, there's no Caribbean in Cantr, no Taino Indian tribe so no language with the word "barbacoa."

3) We can only do our best to maintain the confusing and convoluted world of Cantr and walk a line where we are neither too annoying nor too blasé about our character's language.

4) It would be interesting to try to find words that were actually created in Cantr without being derived from a real world source. Know of any?
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gudgeon
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Re: What words can I use?

Postby gudgeon » Tue Nov 17, 2020 3:05 am

IMO "autistic" is a perfectly legit word. It simply means self-oriented. I'd avoid using "platonic" myself, but I wouldn't be bothered if others use it, and I think it's okay for other characters either to understand the word "platonic" without explanation, or to pretend that they don't know what "platonic" is.

PaintedbyRoses wrote:4) It would be interesting to try to find words that were actually created in Cantr without being derived from a real world source. Know of any?

I think using "soarer" to denote a type of ship is a Cantr invention.

"Pirong" might also be one. The thing exists in RL but I never know what it's called, and it's not called pirong either.

I never see the word "station car" in RL. Probably it comes from "station wagon".

The concept of DOW, too. One may presume that the term is usedly extensively in Marxist study, but it seems that other terms are used instead.
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Alladinsane
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Re: What words can I use?

Postby Alladinsane » Wed Nov 18, 2020 3:49 pm

"IICRC" Dow comes from" Day Of Work" referring to gathering and production rates of any product or resource IG. The RL equivalent is to a "Day of Labor" which was modified into the word "Dollar" by process of linguistic or abbreviation, I am too lazy to deepen the research on it.

In the cantr sense, I believe that communication tops the IC requirement for word origins; this is a game with no graphics or even extensive use of pictures or colors in anything but language. This is not a huge limitation IMO...

We use literacy to paint our pictures and describe a scene or personal appearance. If you read a lot of books, you can picture something by the way in which an adept author describes it and many if of the great "classic" books proceed with nary a picture or illustration. A great rule of writing is to paint the picture/scene and then place the characters within it. Hiking through the mountains includes such things as the rocks you can step over, or the mud on the trail...even though all of the roads in cantr are straight on the maps they might include curves, washouts and wildlife... there are even snails included somewhere on the wiki. Do animals only eat when they are domesticated, or do they hunt and die or graze? We create the small details of this world and we add the color to it.
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Sunni Daez
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Re: What words can I use?

Postby Sunni Daez » Wed Nov 18, 2020 8:05 pm

Just a thought, for someone who is learning a new language, trying to use words strictly related to Cantr would make translation even harder. Cantrains use the phrase 'good morning ' without regard to the cantrain clock. It is based on their own log in times and game sleepiness. There is no night or day... light or dark. Some words have real meaning in RL but not IG.
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gudgeon
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Re: What words can I use?

Postby gudgeon » Thu Nov 19, 2020 3:08 am

Alladinsane wrote:The RL equivalent is to a "Day of Labor" which was modified into the word "Dollar"


Very interesting! I didn't know this.
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witia1
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Re: What words can I use?

Postby witia1 » Thu Nov 19, 2020 1:45 pm

While I do have this moments when I find it a bit strange/unnatural for Cantrians to use phrases that would not have way to develop for them, in long term I think it's fine as Cantrian languages would not have enough time to develop properly. Usage of our world phrases fill gap that naturally wouldn't exist anf is present only due to hard and short limit how long Cantr as world exists and it's inhabitants are "born" fully develop with not exactly determined knowledge and skills.
Especially I would not stress out about phrases that in our daily life don't have easy replacement as assumption that it would have if cantrian language develop on it's own is quite fair in my opinion.
Working around them would make communication way more wonky than using those phrases even if there is no way to explain how they developed in game.

I have bigger issue when someone is trying to describe undeveloped parts of game or world itself than if he uses terms of phrases that are coming from our world.

I've once met person that was trying to determine shape of world and while his ideas and experiments where derived from our world and would perfectly work on Earth at green world game doesn't give tools to carry it out. Peforming those experiments and results would be in range of rp so would come from assumption of player and by extension forcing others to accept same vision or it would create huge mess where same action gives other results for different characters.
Same category for me is medicine. As often I meet characters that translate our biology and our medicine to Cantr. And while on surface it is nice and I would assume is logical as Cantrians should be humans. But when such medic meet person that refuses his way of healing and goes with "just rub honey on wound" it becomes a bit wonky. Simply because honey actually works by game mechanics. Bearly alive character can eat bunch of honey and be perfectly fine in matter of seconds to swing his axe and doesn't need any complicated medical procedures. And while I agree it is matter of commitment to rp and it would be reasonable to expect from player to rp consequences of character ill state, game mechanics support honey way. With addition how fight mechanic work it would be to advantageous to attacker if healing would work other way but that only makes problem bigger. If at one time wound can be "magically" honey healed and other time same wound requires days or years of recorvery it makes world "a bit" inconsistent.

Same thing is for me when someone corrects others if they say Good Morning for Good Evening as in his assumption (or most of town) game time of their town correspond to their time zone when game doesn't provide such information.
It's enforcement of one person rp over other and for rules to be fair that role of game master only if mechanics won't provide answer. And as Cantr doesn't have GM then in my opinion only fair solution is either avoid statements about issues that cannot be resolved or making them in more open way that leave place for other people involved to be included in decision about how rp action will be resolved.
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PaintedbyRoses
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Re: What words can I use?

Postby PaintedbyRoses » Thu Nov 19, 2020 5:27 pm

Here's a question I had the other day when someone told a "fart" joke. I know Cantrians are basically human and have genitals but do they have, ummm, how should I put this? Do they have anuses? They don't produce human dung so why would they need one? Just so they could make a fart?
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Millhouse
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Re: What words can I use?

Postby Millhouse » Thu Nov 19, 2020 6:46 pm

PaintedbyRoses wrote:Here's a question I had the other day when someone told a "fart" joke. I know Cantrians are basically human and have genitals but do they have, ummm, how should I put this? Do they have anuses? They don't produce human dung so why would they need one? Just so they could make a fart?


Well how else would they ingage in...you know what nevermind. By that same token the game isn't coded with urination, reproduction or lactation so there's no "technical" reason for genitals to exist, either. I think it's just assumed everyone conducts normal bodily functions. It would just be kind of gross if it was coded into the game.

Wow this thread got super hijacked.
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gudgeon
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Re: What words can I use?

Postby gudgeon » Fri Nov 20, 2020 12:29 pm

Incidentally, how do you say "cancel the project"? It is videogamey to just say "cancel", but I don't know how to put it otherwise. Especially for non-manufacturing projects like prying door, disassembling, etc. There's a distinction between stopping working on it, and cancellation, so you can't simply say "stop working on it".
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Rocket Frog
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Re: What words can I use?

Postby Rocket Frog » Fri Nov 20, 2020 5:39 pm

gudgeon wrote:Incidentally, how do you say "cancel the project"? It is videogamey to just say "cancel", but I don't know how to put it otherwise. Especially for non-manufacturing projects like prying door, disassembling, etc. There's a distinction between stopping working on it, and cancellation, so you can't simply say "stop working on it".


I would just say "stop that; return everything just as it was before", "quit doing that", "hands off and put everything back at its previous state", etc.
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Sunni Daez
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Re: What words can I use?

Postby Sunni Daez » Fri Nov 20, 2020 10:33 pm

So.. words I can use... Is it proper cantrain to say 2nd.. or second. Doesn't change meaning I know, just curious what others do. I have used both .
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gudgeon
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Re: What words can I use?

Postby gudgeon » Sat Nov 21, 2020 2:51 am

Sunni Daez wrote:So.. words I can use... Is it proper cantrain to say 2nd.. or second. Doesn't change meaning I know, just curious what others do. I have used both .


Cantrian can count. Time exists in Cantr. So both should be perfectly ok to say.

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