AMIA ARCHIVE • View topic

...which is start a curious thread about an Amian/Faerunian lexicon. It has been on my mind for a while. Naturally, there are certain terms or even concepts that can be defined in a word (or a phrase) that are either specific to the Amian/Faerunian setting, or, alternatively, that are specific to both the Amian/Faerunian setting and our reality, but for which the English word itself is peculiarly unfitting or unsound due to its etymological makeup.

A recent example I came upon, and fabricated a solution to: the term christen. I had occasion to use it, and when it was typed out I realized that the Christ-reference, while it may have several possible analogs in the FR settings, the Jesus motif being the pervasive element that it is, would be unsuitable in its English form. Its etymology is grounded in an event that did not occur in FR. Now, we could give this word my aforementioned treatment and simply mentally translate it into a setting appropriate word of our own when it is perceived by the reader as incongruent...

...but I wanted to take a slightly different approach, and instead open up the opportunity for others to identify likewise problematic diction and to give us a possible Amian/Faerunian neologism to supplant it. One that is, at its best, catchy, clever, with a good explanation, maybe even complete with a manufactured etymology, if you're feeling froggy.

My hope is that there will be some good recommendations here and some neat ideas and we'll see the best of the words in an unofficial Amian lexicon become vogue in the diction of our Amian characters.

My solution to the word "christened" above, by the way, was Oghmanned. Oghma being the Binder or, the Namer, the deity of Names, and christening being, in our concept of the word, a traditional practice of bestowing a name upon a person or object.

So when a vessel goes to sea, it is Oghmanned. Some people may say that when a baby is named, it is Oghmanned as so and so.

I hope to see some neat recommendations, as well as this thread taken seriously rather than spammed and my own yawn-inducing interest in minutiae indulged.

To be fair Yoss, since we use the English Language IG as "Common", I think supplanting can only be avoided to a certain extent. I mean, most words in English have a root that stems from German, Latin, etc that in turn stems back to a caveman in a field somewhere pointing to the huge leafy thing growing out of the ground and saying "trewan". Those events, cultures and their languages never "happened" in the Faerunian/Amian reality, and so, we must take our use of English in the game as a given. We say "christened" because that's the word for breaking a bottle over a ships hull. That's just the word for it. It's just something that has to be glossed over for the sake of everyone not having to learn a new language to immerse themselves in a foreign world, IMO.

Now that that bit of nit-pickyness is gotten off my shoulders, I am in fact interested in this. Just because it adds to the setting and indeed has potential of bits of neatness. I'll have to revisit it though. All I can think of are the words one of my PC uses IC in terms of vulgar slang and genitalia references.

Actually I like the idea of coming up with more of a Lexicon, not only to get more flavour to the region.

A small example, "Montys" (Monties?) .. A nickname for a Gold coin tied to Montegomery D'Cordor..

Flavor is precisely what I am shooting for here, not the creation of any new and foreign language.

I said I think it's a nice idea. The Writing side of me just wouldn't let that point go without me saying. >_> *avails yon arse-hat du shame*

I seek to contribute. All the ones I've some up with so far deal with mages though, so I'm trying to think of some more commonplace ones before I make a list.

Feck

Oh okay, since I hear it used alot...we can make a sort of history for it:

Feck is a modified version of the word "Peck", a referrence to not only the male private part, but also to little people.

Hence "you are a peck"
A "peck" in ye
Feck
Feck ye.

Another small addendum to Cordorian Slang:

Greyboots: Slang term for the Cordorian Guard Forces.

I'm working on more thoughts that'd make sense to be unique to Cordor without sounding.. goofy?

Some various slang I've used on my Eilistraeean character over the last few years:

N'wah - Bastard (alot of people should see where it's stolen from though)
S'wit - Same as the above.

'Tussies - Tempurans/War Knights
Fisters - Banites/Followers of Bane

Llothlings - Lolthites/Evil Drow
Down under - The Underdark

Big'lings - Humans. Reasoning behind it is how all mixed races with human lineage is half-something. As such.. half-lings, and eventually ended up with Big'lings for humans.

Monochromatic(s) - Himself/Drow, initially meant as a joke related to chromatic dragon/drow relationships.

Big Justice - Sir Mark Dorne
Goldhands - Cordorian Knights of Law

There are several other ones related to locations and such as well, but I'll have to dig deeper into my logs to find it all.

The Stupid: A term used to explain the ever expanding performance of incredibly daft acts that defy explanation.

Okay so that may be a Xal thing...

Gravemaskin wrote:

Fisters - Banites/Followers of Bane

This amused me.

The only real slang that I've used is "Whoredancers" to refer to followers of Eilistraee (and 'the Whoredancer' for the god). For expressions along the lines of 'go to hell', I'd generally say 'the hells' or 'the Abyss', or "a snowball's chance in Phlegethos", since the specific layers are different.

When cussing, I use 'gods' instead of 'God', since this is a polytheistic society, and cusses such as "By [god's name] hairy ..." I've found to effectively demonstrate a character's gruntledness.

Last edited by IronAngel on Tue, Oct 19 2010, 14:25 PM, edited 1 time in total.

Vain and self-preoccupied people obviously can't be narcissist. Instead, the common man immediately makes the connection to the superficial church of Sune.

"He's an obnoxious firehair. It takes him two hours of preparation before he can show himself at the marketplace."

"I tell you, I haven't seen as red-haired a blonde north of Calimport as she is. She's in love with the mirror."

EDIT: In fact, real red heads have a hard time in the Realms, because they're often stereotyped as vain and shallow. Thanks a lot, Sune!

Yurell wrote:

The only real slang that I've used is "Whoredancers" to refer to followers of Eilistraee (and 'the Whoredancer' for the god).

And conversely, it's common among Eilistraeeans to refer to Lolth as "The Bitch." I've also heard them use the terms "the Below" and "the Above" when referring to the Underdark and the surface world, respectively.

IronAngel wrote:

Vain and self-preoccupied people obviously can't be narcissist. Instead, the common man immediately makes the connection to the superficial church of Sune.

"He's an obnoxious firehair. It takes him two hours of preparation before he can show himself at the marketplace."

"I tell you, I haven't seen as red-haired a blonde north of Calimport as she is. She's in love with the mirror."

I absolutely adore this, and will be stealing it immediately.

If it's completely optional to add such words that only your character uses, I'll gladly add a variety of names Xal has used over the years.
Such as:

Spider Bitch: Lolth
Bitch Queen: Lolth
Whore Dancer: Elistraeen
Spider Kisser: Lolthite
Boredor: Cordor on a boring day.
The Dark One: Mask
The Walking Portal to the Plane of Disease: Xaviera (

)
Those "Things": Driders

I'd love to think up more of these, but I can't come up with any words or phrases to replace, off the top of my head. I know there are hundreds, but for whatever reason they all elude me. A native speaker, can you please list some idioms and words that derive blatantly from specfic historical or mythological sources?

"Crusade" is particularly annoying, but I've yet to think of a generic enough a replacement.

uhh...please dont go into the crusade debate again

Read the topic and stop the spam.

Selvec Darkon wrote:

The Walking Portal to the Plane of Disease: Xaviera (

)

By Bast's bounteous boobs, Selvec, I pray that you're afflicted with the crotch rot!

(and no comments about the most likely place to contract it! hahaha)

One of the more polite forms of address that could be (and has been, IC) used for a Sharessin: Temptress

And '(spider) bitch' and 'spiderkisser' are pretty much standard terms around the Shrine of Eilistraee for Lolth and her followers.

An english phrase that takes on a slightly different meaning in the context of the Temple of Love's baths and the many idols found there: Cleanliness is next to godliness

Hope this helps some sayings and links to a lot more.

Tenday - a Faerunian week is divided into ten days.

First-day, Second-day, Third-day . . . - the days of the week (instead of Monday, Tuesday . . . )

High sun - noon

Twelve bells - interchangeable between midnight and noon (or highsun).

Feh - common swear word throughout the Realms.

Counting like a halfling - someone that is being different just to be difficult.

Cyric's smile - throat slit

el'garess - actually elg'caress, meaning bitch

jaluk - male

khalesss ussa - trust me

lil allur - the best (as in lil alurl velve zhah lil velkyn uss meaning "the best knife is the unseen one")

mrann d'ssinsss - lover

Nau! Oloth plynn jal - No! Darkness take all!

Oloth plynn nina - Darkness take them (Oloth plynn dos means "darkness take you")

Shar tlu malla - Shar be praised!

ss'inssrigg - passion, lust (or intense greed)

wai jabbal - my master

Tarkulian - Necromancer

Vith - common drow curse word

Red Menace - red wizards

Cyric's promise - its all lies and half truth

I also suggest that Amia "chose" or create a single compendium for thieves cant and have a section in this lexicon, that way all the rouges in Amia can use it and we can understand each-other, as often i find rouges all using different versions of thieves cant and we dont understand each other. - i have a number of links for these also--

http://forum.candlekeep.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=13403
** Best link MASSIVE database of FR Terms & sayings**

Some other helpful links.

http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Common_dictionary

http://s1.zetaboards.com/Blues_Club/topic/3182464/1/

http://www.mindspring.com/~sylverion/nwn/dphrase.htm

TBH i cant think of more atm but i know there are more in my noggin and i have seen players use such rich Toril/ FR sayings in-game, im certain with enough people we could have a very rich set of terms.

I tend to use 'bells' for the hours too.

I think this got sidetracked from Yoss's original intention of creating neologisms to replace English terms that refer too blatantly to the real world. Either way, that Candlekeep link is awesome, Talia. I haven't been following the forums lately, so I never saw that compilation.

My favorite so far is "Monties" for Cordorian gold. Oghmanned is worth a few chuckles. "Oghman the ships!" "That's an Oghmanned vessel", etc.

IronAngel wrote:

I think this got sidetracked from Yoss's original intention of creating neologisms to replace English terms that refer too blatantly to the real world. Either way, that Candlekeep link is awesome, Talia. I haven't been following the forums lately, so I never saw that compilation.

My favorite so far is "Monties" for Cordorian gold. Oghmanned is worth a few chuckles. "Oghman the ships!" "That's an Oghmanned vessel", etc.

Yeah, "Monties" and your suggestion to replace narcissist are on the top of my personal list, referring to them as "red-headed" in some way as a reference to Sune.

It has gotten a bit sidetracked, but that's fine, because people are just enjoying the opportunity to tell us how their PCs talk. Unfortunately, a lot of those examples are just as tenable in standard English and, ironically, at least one is even more suitable in English than the alternative neologism - feck / fuck. Considering the acronym in fuck's etymology, and the fact that the FR setting still has lots of kings and kingly rules, the word fuck has, in that respect, even more relevance than our modern day.

It is precisely words like "narcissist" that are problematic. I can't think of any others off the top of my head, either, and as I said, I really just stumbled upon "christened" purely by accident, but I know there are lots of others out there and the thread is kind of a challenge for others to find them and to rebuild them into a memorable and interesting neologism for use in the setting.

What about words like "racist" that stemmed from Communist conflicts? I did some poking around and it seems the word was invented around the 1930s in response to Jewish persecution.

Following on from Narcisism, the one that screams out to me for being simiularly off is Martial. Coming from Mars, Roman name of Ares, God of war. Perhaps Tempurial would be more fitting. Or something like.

Also Herculean. Mercurial. Tantalize.

She's a Sharesshan - "Girl who likes other girls"

There can be no platonic love on Toril. Plato dismisses all emotions and focus on accidental physical attributes as disruptive to true friendship. Likewise, a companionship characterised by a shared love for unchanging truth, a moderate aspiration to achieve good goals and a common understanding in which undue passions are tempered is connected to Savras the All-Seeing.

"Albert and Bertolt have known eachother since childhood. You don't see them have much fun together, but there's a real love of the third eye between them."

"Look at those scholars ramble on. Despite their often opposing theses, there's some Savran steam between them."

OK, that's pretty awkward. Feel free to take a better jab at platonic love. Also, stoic.

Popular uses of "stoic" tend to imply fatalistic on one hand, and enduring of punishment on the other. Actual Stoicism is all about finding happiness in accepting the way of nature, and avoiding excess emotion, but I guess that's not the popular use and besides, not relevant in Amia. If we were to stay in the field of the divine, Savras seems to fill the bill here, too. Ilmater is another option. One lacks the enduring bit and focuses on observing, while the other would endure but also strive to change things. So neither is a very close match, but then, the common man on Faerûn is hardly a theologer or philosopher. Maybe we could do something with St. Sollars the Twice-Martyred, though I'm having a hard time converting that into an adjective.

"Aren't you the twice-martyred, you didn't even flinch."

Not so good. Ilmater is the god on the rack, though. "He's the embodiment of racker virtues, just standing there."

Meh. There was a Loviatan priestess who wore an Ilmatari hair shirt relic to learn its secrets, and became known as Leatherskin. That's one option. "He stood there leatherskinned, resigned to the inevitable."

This is rather difficult.

Last edited by Glyph on Tue, Oct 19 2010, 16:47 PM, edited 1 time in total.

ooo, i don't know if some of these are FR specific rather than amia, but I have seen so many halflings call people 'tallers' i think its one for the list.

also replace earth with toril, uh regarding the drow, I have heard Eilistraee refered to as the whore queen before, or simply the whore, guess it depends which side of the alignment pool your on at the time.

regarding the original post and the religion thing to be specific, the best way I can think to solve any setting issues is to use generic terms. example there are chosen already, a 'christning' could range from an 'induction' to 'the blood rites of [insert demon deity here]' or something, though I think cyricized has a ring to it xD

but yea generic terms, I find it very hard not to type "holy *expletive* christ, what on earth was that?!" most of the time, takes me a moment to compose myself to instead retort with 'holy...what on toril is going on now?!'

ed: marriage in non-human specific combo's, or especially definatly not human (elves) is a tricky one as well.

Were she (Peepsquack) around, I would imagine "I blame the Gnomes." would somehow be suggested to be something kin to a situation going completely and utterly wrong.

Example: My new business didn't work out as planned, I blame the Gnomes.

Alternatively, one could replace the more modern metaphor of a wrench in the gears with a Gnome (poor Gnome) with the same difference. More subtly, anything tied to a Gnome getting involved could mean that something's become more complicated.

Example 2: "Boss, we gotta talk about the Waukeen Temple job, looks like Gnomes."

Perhaps a more recent development lingusitically , an exclamation typical of Cordorians , especially Southern Cordorians. "Saint John's Wounds!" or the more positive "Saint John's Rising!"

"Coin Girl/Boy" could be a derogatory term for a Waukeenar

(considering the other possible application, I imagine someone calling Tristana this'd likely get an unofficial and subtle but VERY violent beating in Cordor).

TaliaZalinNalla wrote:

I also suggest that Amia "chose" or create a single compendium for thieves cant and have a section in this lexicon, that way all the rouges in Amia can use it and we can understand each-other, as often i find rouges all using different versions of thieves cant and we dont understand each other.

That's how its supposed to be. There's -so- many different variations of Thieves Cant that it's almost impossible for a thief to know every kind. If you go to Amn from Baldur's Gate you'll have no idea what they're saying. The same could be said if you went from the Dock's ward to the South ward in Waterdeep. You'd have a better idea, but still wouldn't know exactly what was being said.

It's this reason that I've suggested to all thieves to never do "[Thieves' Cant] Hey wanna rob something?", because some people who have 'learnt it' in X region wouldn't know what people from Y region are saying. It's best to just create, learn, and refine your own.

Wolfking6116 wrote:

It's this reason that I've suggested to all thieves to never do "[Thieves' Cant] Hey wanna rob something?", because some people who have 'learnt it' in X region wouldn't know what people from Y region are saying. It's best to just create, learn, and refine your own.

This. Some places do this already, though not with theves cant. The Shrine for instance have several different variants of the drow sign language that differ greatly from the one generally used in the underdark. It's all about location when it comes to secret languages.. though I can see how SOME things would or could be the same.

For instance a way for one thief from say Amn.. to relay his profession, intent or somesuch to a thief in waterdeep. For instance asking for the nearest shady bar, fence and so on.

Theves cant - Common

Seems like a good thing to use as a base for it. Or perhaps use a few more "universal" gestures that might be common troughout the regions of Faerun.

One example could be: "Seen my Uncle the beggar maker around here?" (Seen a fence or tavern around here?)
Or: "I could use some hired help. I got a shouldertap to give to a pig that's going legit." (I could use an accomplice. Going to backstab a guard that's marked for death.)

Iron, Cloak-and-Dagger, and Koragi are onto something here. In case anyone hasn't figured it out yet, this is both an intellectual and a creative exercise that I think is fun.

Racist is a tough one. The word "race" as applied to distinct races really takes on a new meaning in a fantasy setting like FR, where races are not merely variations on a species, as in our case, but a delineating factor between entirely different species. Are different species adequately differentiated enough by the term "race" for the coining of the term "racism", the -ism regarding racial differences? I'm not entirely sure the word needs to be recast, but it is thought-provoking to consider the sapient history of race-ism.

Words like "mercurial" and "tantalize" are far more subtle than even "christen" and "crusade". For the former, we can reasonably assume the element of mercury exists, but how did it come to be called such? In our world it is a reference to the Roman deity Mercury (a loaded deity and one as close to my heart as the Greek Apollo). I am of course not suggesting we must recast anything, let alone a very difficult example like "mercurial". The English words for anything will suffice.

This is where the creative part of the exercise comes in: can we effectively replace it with a neologism that is interesting, popular, easy, or intriguing enough to actually make it into IC vogue? That's a tough part, too, but I think some folks can successfully pull it off. Iron has already achieved it with me - anytime I want to peg someone as a narcissist I am absolutely going to make reference to them being a "fire-haired" or "red-headed" because I think that is a great reference that brings some flavor to Sune and her worshippers, in fact. I may refer to Amian coin as "Monties" as well, to see if I can usher the term into the PC vernacular.

One of the little lessons to walk away with is our impact as a community of thinkers/creators on the world of our collective imagination. If you can think it out intellectually, and frame/pattern/force it to stick creatively, you've just contributed to impacting the world of the collective imagination.

I realize it's not quite what Yoss is asking for, but

"Red" as a slang word for thief (= rouge

). Popular etymology would link it to being caught 'red-handed'.

"Watch out for him. He's as light-fingered a red as I've ever seen"

i also dont want to high jack the thread in regard to "Thieves Cant" but what i was trying to say is there should be one thieves cant or a more common set of words for it in amia, sure not everyone might have access to it icly, but occly they can, and then can "learn" it though contact with other professionals on the island.

in-fact i am going to go an make a topic right now, an see if we can get players to contribute and make an Amia Thieveis cant.

>.<

Oh I thought of one.

Can 'O' Faith: An architectural paladin in full plate armor.

Lightskirt - Prostitute

Gouger - A rich merchant, especially one with a bad reputation or who sells poor quality goods

Black Bastard - Banite

Whoreson - Bastard, parentage insult (Credit to Casper Meche for that one)

Masked Rat - Vhaerunian

Lackwit - A fool/idiot

Vyshaan - Deadly insult to elves, especially gold elves. References the gold elf house that started the Crown Wars.

Spidermeat - A surfacer who goes hunting drow in the Underdark

Man in a dress - A spellcaster who prefers robes, derogatory term

Tomesniffer/Booksniffer - Wizard, derogatory term

Fingerwiggler - Spellcaster, derogatory term

Brute - A warrior, especially a str-focused one or barbarian

'Dancer - Shadowdancer

Fiendspawn - Tiefling

Rockbiter - Dwarf, derogatory term

Stunty - Dwarf, insult

Flamefinger - A wizard specializing in fire spells, especially a pyromaniac.

Corpsehugger/Corpsecuddler - A necromancer or follower of Velsharoon.

Drow fever - an "illness" someone particularly attracted to drow seems to have. Especially if they enjoy being dominated or controlled by them.

Blackheart - Someone with an evil reputation

Bullyboy - A lowbrow thug or mugger

Felt Talona's kiss - come down with a severe illness

Firefly: Term for a young, flashy mage. Showoff. Likely based off of their prolific use of spells like Fireball that are big and flashy, but have relatively low complexity or theoretical "substance"(in the opinions of some wizards). "Bright light, little bug" is also a reference to this term.

Blackbook: Noun referring to a spellcaster that dabbles in the darker, more violent, though not necessarily evil side of magic. Can also be used as an adjective as well. "Hey, I'd watch out for that student. He's a bit blackbook from what I heard."

Courting Mystra: Wizard slang for studying. Females may sometimes replace with "Courting Azuth", but usually, either is acceptable in either case, as it is used jokingly.

The Jolt that Fell the Town: Old wizard's tale of a young wizard's foolish use of Electric Jolt that started a fire. That fire spread from the lab, out into the streets, until eventually the whole town was engulf and ultimately razed to ash. The expression describes a situation, action, or event that snowballs uncontrollably. It may also refer to the last in a series of events that causes a large reaction, like "The straw that broke the camel's back."

Goldscroller: A mage that uses his magic almost exclusively for business. Pejorative. Best described as a "Magic whore" that uses his gift/knowledge for money and nothing else. Can refer to arcane or divine.

Often Invisible: Adjective. Someone who is usually late, missing or scatterbrained. The joke being they're often "not there", either physically or mentally.

Meandering Menagerie: Mage that often has summons about for no apparent reason, or uses them for menial tasks(mount, pack animal, showing off). More modern would be "walking petting zoo".

Robe-tugger: Apprentice.

Spawn of Fauns: Pejorative for Sorcerers. The jist of it being that Fauns are pretty much satyrs and have intercourse indescribably, resulting in sorcerous spawn.

Gypsy is another word that doesn't translate well into this world. It finds its origins in the misconception that the Romani people came from Egypt, a place that clearly doesn't exist on Toril. However, the (unfair) stereotype attributed to gypsies could still easily be used on people on Toril: cheaters, con artists, nomads, exotic folk, etc.

Watch out for Brandies in Waterdeep. They'll cut your purse before your eyes and convince you it was your idea.

Might be even better used with a play on Mask... two-faced?

a few slang words some of my toons uses:

Darky-Drow
Flinger-spellcaster
Half Pints(derogatory)-Hinn
Jaunt-adventure, hunt or walk ie. "how 'bout we take a jaunt through th' abyss"
Poof-half wit or idiot ie. "Gods your such a poof some times"
Cross blades-fight
Fairfolk-elves
Dead'r-undead
Jest-joke
Stout-Dwarf
Uuppidys or uppidy ups-nobles
One eyes-beholders
Squidheads-Illithids

heh thats all I can come up with right now if I think of any more I'll add to it. Theres quite a few others but I've seen another list like this in the forums somewhere, it's mainly slang terms and phrases, if I find the link I'll post it.

demon/devils blood, bad bloods = tieflings

most of the other ones I see are very relevant, and half pints is an awesome way of putting it lol...IRL back in school we used to refer to the new starters as the 'yey high's' for obvious reasons.

also class specific terms,

'the meat' = thou who art a tank in combat
spellfire = mage/sorcorer/mystic/otherwise, who can provide adequate evocations during combat
medic! = generally a paniced shout for the nearest cleric, or lacking that the one with the most supplies

I was about to say fists for monks but I think I have reached the conclusion of my usefulness to this thread right now.

I guess i've seen a few DD's refered to as wings but that could work for anyone with wings.

Spellfire is its own thing in canon.

took me a bit but here's the link to the thread I referred to in my post above.
Spellfire- is 'pure' magic bordering on divine and very -very- rare to see and even more rare that a being could harness such raw power.(also a book by Ed Greenwood and an awesome read

)

Cursing in the Realms
This Link can be found with a bunch of other useful ones in the link below.

Useful Links and Threads

Makin' Sushi: Killing Mindflayers.

For the drow:

Endarken - enlighten
Kill two bats with one bolt - kill two birds with one stone
Spider with eight lives - cat with nine lives
Make the eight pointed sign - make the sign of the cross

I've considered inverting the usual axis of up = good, down = bad, but it started to get too confusing.

Logicality wrote:

Gypsy is another word that doesn't translate well into this world. It finds its origins in the misconception that the Romani people came from Egypt, a place that clearly doesn't exist on Toril. However, the (unfair) stereotype attributed to gypsies could still easily be used on people on Toril: cheaters, con artists, nomads, exotic folk, etc.

Watch out for Brandies in Waterdeep. They'll cut your purse before your eyes and convince you it was your idea.

Might be even better used with a play on Mask... two-faced?

This is the only post remotely on-topic since Yoss's. >_> (Edit: and also Didi's.)

Brandy sounds good, though I'm not sure if humans would pick up a halfling god like that. If you want to use geography, you could call them Callies. The people of Calimshan are greedy, untrustworthy merchants who travel the Sword Coast. They're also distant and exotic enough for most (as opposed to the Chondathan Sembians).

So words that might be fun to replace so far:
Mercurial
Martial
Tantalize
Herculean
Racist
Stoic (Suggestion: twice-martyred, racker, leatherskinned)
Platonic love (Suggestion: love of the third eye, Savran steam)
Crusade
Gypsy (Suggestion: Brandies, Callies)
Christened (Suggestion: Oghmanned)
Narcissist (Suggestion: firehaired, red-headed)

Also, alcoholic drinks (such as champagne) should be called by their generic names (in this case, sparkling wine), rather than their regional ones (since champagne is only made in Champagne, France).

IronAngel wrote:

This is the only post remotely on-topic since Yoss's. >_> (Edit: and also Didi's.)

The lexicon of a language is its vocabulary...seems words and there definitions falls in to this category and is very much so on topic.

Don't bother refuting my post I won't read it I'm done with this thread.

Your after Amian/Faerunian etymology not definitions(Lexicon)

From Greek:

Amazon, ambrosia, arachnid, atlas, attic (relating to Athenian architecture), bias (one of the seven sages of Greece), cathartic, cosmos, chronology, draconian... you get the drift.

Rather than make these words taboo, I'd think of them as a goldmine for some homebrew plaguarised mythology. Mythology doesn't have to be true, in any real sense.

There's too many "this world" references which are so ingrained and the roots so obscure, that though its a fun game for the forums, its not something anyone should be a pedant about in game.

eh I see what I missed now. damn ninja'd to cosmos...

Quote:

In Mandarin Chinese, cosmos is translated as 宇宙 yuzhou, which literally translated means space-time (宇 yu = space + 宙 zhou = time).

one that can't be gotten rid of. mulhorandi, or egyptian god, RE translates as 'the sun', or just sun I guess...sun, ray, geddit? =)

once you snap the words apart and look for the greek its all so simple. apocalypse is a weird one, it means 'lifting the veil', as if to say "hey we also had the idea that maybe life is an illusion, wonder if this will freak anyone out in two thousand years time" O_o

also revelation, is a reveal, ation...something shall be revealed...

sorry I can't be more constructive (no sleep woo for tea..), my last point would probably be that religious/earth specifically related prefixes of words are the main issue in game, such as has been said christening, due to christ being the prefix, I can't think of any that are relevant though, thus the above randomness...

perhaps earthquakes could be refered to as grumbars ? http://amiawiki.shatuga.com/index.php/Grumbar

ed: toril-quakes doesn't have the ring to it...

Amian Lexicon

Who is online