By John Walker on October 7th, 2010 at 9:54 am.
Both Kieron and Jim have taken their turns at complaining about the name of Techland’s forthcoming ATV and dirt-biking racer, “nail’d“. Now it’s mine: Just what exactly is that apostrophe doing? It’s as many keystrokes to type, and it was all one word in the first place. Dear Techland and Deep Silver, your game is called “Nailed”. It has a capital N because it’s a proper noun, and it doesn’t have one letter madly replaced with a stick of wayward grammar. Thanks, love, John. Meanwhile, the game looks fun. New trailer below.
Reading that headline, my initial thought was; Iä! Iä! Cthulhu fhtagn!
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And reading your comment, my first thought was: “I HAZ AN UNFATHOMED MOUNTAINZ OF MADNESS. Don’t let me show you it.”
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Clearly Techland are following in the steps of one W. Shakespeare, and didn’t want their game to be Nailed. Or something.
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You’re behind the times, John Walker, the English language of your ancestors is no more. It has been replaced by more edgy lingo, with lots of missing random letters, to make up for the amount of superfluous X letters scattered around randomly.
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Yeah John, didn’t you know? Language EVOLVES. You know what that means don’t you? it means we can write however we like. So scr’w u.
;)
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How ironic. Informing John of the state of play and then Nall’n can’t even spell his own name right ;)
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I F3AR you’ve forgotten about numbers used as letters, my friend.
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This is what happens John, when you demand that ‘z’ should be pronounced ‘zee’. Anarchy occurs.
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But ‘z’ is pronounced ‘zee’ – I don’t get your point ;)
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When naming the letter, ‘zed’ or ‘zee’ are both acceptable. However when pronouncing the letter (not the word for the letter) it should be pronounced as you would the letter ‘S’ but with a vocalization at the back of the throat. :P
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It’s zed, and also it’s maths with an s on the end.
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I could care less about how you pronounce Z.
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So, you *do* care at least a little, then?
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Also, while we’re about it: ‘Arse’ or Bum’, never ‘Ass’ and certainly not ‘Butt’
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If you ever want to lose your tearful reputation and reinvent yourself as an edgy young go-getter, John Walk’r has a bit of a ring to it.
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That title hurt my brain. It’s lead to me wanting an entire feature article written in the style of Feersum Endjinn, though.
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Thank the imaginary, I’m not the only one.
Un off theez deyz I’ll wurk up thi enerji tu rid thi hole buk. Banks dimandz itt.
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I read the whole thing a couple of years ago. Very much worth it.
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My theory re: that name.
They nailed all the letters to a wall, but the e came of, and now it lies on the floor. What we can see now is not an apostrophe but the nail that the e was once hung onto.
nail'd
____e__
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Makes sense to me, PI stahlwerk.
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TEEN GIRL SQUAD!
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Apostrophe’d!
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Good god this features LYRICS?! Well, I shall definitely not be purchasing it, I’m strictly an instrumental ATV enthusiast.
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New gay footage released? I didn’t find that heading very representative of the video embedded beneath.
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I’m with John. Please can we go back to the days of proper, unambiguous and clear communication?
When I walk into town I am assaulted by things that are ‘lite’, shops that sell ‘fones’, and either missing or extraneous apostrophes.
None of that is edgy. It is just ignorant.
I have no problem with language evolving, but I take umbrage at it devolving into protoplasm.
Therefore no sale of this attention-deficit sexist game to me.
What a shame.
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There is no difference between language ‘evolution’ and ‘devolution’. The only difference between meaning shifts/spelling changes now and centuries ago is that now we complain more about it. :-)
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Evolution would be language becoming more efficient and better suited to purpose.
Devolution would be language becoming less efficient and worse suited to purpose.
If everyone can spell things as they like and punctuate as they wish, and rules to clarify meaning are thrown by the wayside, then communication becomes less efficient. Cat’s, cats’, cats = three hugely different meanings, and each is unambiguous and concise. Throw out the rules and you end up with ambiguous or overly-wordy communications. Language becomes less efficient, therefore devolved.
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“It’s a damn poor mind that can only think of one way to spell a word.”
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Language devolution is just regional accents, surely?
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What a shame.
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Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn?
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“In his flat in Bromley, drunk Cthulhu waits knitting?”
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I lol’d
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Ah, the obscene, cyclopean angles of Bromley High Street.
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This title just made me read it in a Scottish accent and reminded me of Oor Wullie
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Nailed is, surely, an adjective. Unless it’s a verb.
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That look pwoper ment’l.
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I think D”psilv’r are German, they might have spelt it that way so that people in-house don’t pronounce it “Nail-aid”.
Seriously ! I used to work at a company that made an Xbox game everyone called “rye-zen” (a fantasy RPG) and it took everything in me not to correct them all the time. Silly Euros…
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Cool, they have ragdolls!
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Somewhat amusingly, I once read an 18th century copy of David Hume’s DCNR in which this use of the apostrophe was cleared considered a standard convention.
It’s entirely possible that Techland are not trying to be edgy or “new”, but rather are part of the activist wing of the Society for the Preservation of Historical Punctuation.
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This was worth clicking to comment on for the article title alone.
Well done, John! No real interest in the game, but their marketing department would probably drum up more interest if they had you designing their slogans for them.
[i]po’r develop’rs nev’r learn’d to spe’l proper’y, we c’n h’s mon’y n’w?[/i]
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…I really need to stop mixing up the blogs that use HTML code with the ones that use BBcode.
I wish there was some Universal standard for this sort of thing.
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In my experience, some developers can’t spell their own names, and some are grammar Nazis. Game artists, though, universally cannot spell. They also communicate in grunts, plaintive wails, and phrases like “root bone smoothing group transverse radial harmonic blend spline.” They make up for this with amazing feats of alcohol tolerance.
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I know a lot of game artists, then…
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There’s nothing more attractive than a lady with a wide stripe of abrasions and lacerations and mud across her midriff. Rowr.
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looks like it uses the Call of Juarez engine, which means my pooter is going to be HOT.
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Hump’d
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one question: splitscreen supported?
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I was gonna link to RPS’s own policy about spelling complaints but they must have removed it before posting this. That’s my theory, at least.
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Is it me, or am I the only one that found the music to the trailer to be rather….. Borderlands-ish in flavour?
I realize the composer of the music for Borderlands may have not been the first to come up with that beat, however, watching the trailer really made me wish we could do stuff like that in Borderlands.
Also… while the slow motion/stopped-time trick is really stylish for the trailer, please put more actual in-game driving, please, Mr. Developer Of The Trailer. For a movie, it look really awesome, but for a showcase of a driving game… just doesn’t seem to work, and be rather counter intuitive to me >_>
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actually evolution is about random mutation and seeing what survives, so if from now on everyone writes with numbers and apostrophes than that’s that. Language or writing is just to get what you mean across to another person, there is no inherently right way just a standard. Get wiz tha ch4ng’s. Well… please don’t.
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My RPS reply fail sense is tingling!
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I wonder what kind of selective pressure would lead to a species having an RPS reply fail sense.
“I can’t tell if this comment is directed at a previous comment or just towAAAAH”
*predator strikes*
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In the futu’e ur not allowed to use the word Edge Brumisator
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first: l33t,1337 and L337 is a separate language that mutated from english.
second: My theory abot replies only failing when nonregistered user(or commenter?) wasn’t previously logged in still remains undisproven.
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you can apply the l33t translation to any language, so is not just english.
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Language shortcuts are for commoners.
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<But Keeerun und Jeem hefe-a tekee zeeur toorns et cumpleeening ebuoot zee neme-a ooff Techlund’s furthcumeeng ETF und durt-beeking recer, “neeel’d“. Noo it’s meene-a: Joost vhet ixectly is thet epustruphe-a dueeng? It’s es muny keystrukes tu type-a, und it ves ell oone-a vurd in zee furst plece-a. Deer Techlund und Deep Seelfer, yuoor geme-a is celled “Neeeled”. It hes a cepeetel N becoose-a it’s a pruper nuoon, und it duesn’t hefe-a oone-a letter medly repleced veet a steeck ooff veyverd gremmer. Hurty flurty schnipp schnipp! Thunks, lufe-a, Juhn. Bork bork bork! Meunvheele-a, zee geme-a luuks foon. Bork bork bork! Noo treeeler beloo.
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@mandrill
I think you mean a voiced alveolar fricative. Err…
1 7|-|1|\||< u |V|34|\| 4 \/01[3D 4|_\/30|_4R |=R1[471\/3.
That is exhausting, not to mention painful.
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