Doug [he/him]

d% is what I usually see

I always divide by two and round up for d3

Yes but he serves a different community

It began with the forging of the Great Rings.

Three were given to the Elves; immortal, wisest and fairest of all beings.

Seven to the Dwarf Lords, great miners and craftsmen of the mountain halls.

And nine…Nine rings were gifted to the Race of Men, who above all else desire power.

For within these rings was bound the strength and will to govern each race.

But do you recall… The most famous one ring of all

Or been hiding their knowledge of their part in the problem longer than a lot of people have been alive

Been a while since I saw a reference to exceptional strength

Not enough robot arms to be Magnus Burnsides

Not to just keep replying to you but it’s also very doable online if you can’t find players where you are

You can’t. You can do better sometimes but there will still be hiccups. As far as I’m aware the groups most likely to be actually consistent have been playing together since they were in school.

This isn’t meant to be discouraging at all! The opposite in fact. Don’t let those hiccups, common or rare, stop you. Just be aware of their possibility and ready to adapt. Ability to adapt is the most useful tool in the GM toolbox at the table and approaching it.

While reading this comment I had the thought of a stoic warrior type that was very much an outsider to the society he was mostly operating in but very open to learning about the things that are new to him. Occasionally he would really embrace some part of that culture and make his own references to it.

I’d probably call him Jaxson and get away with it until he said indeed.

No, but I’m gonna run his code anyway

You sound really upset about this.

If you’re reading tone into my text, that’s a you problem. I doubt I can to anything to affect that, but text doesn’t carry tone, we add it ourselves based on ourselves.

Originations, at the time of origination

Sure. But if one is new the other is old. The fact that, for you, one is always new and the other is never old, says something. Perhaps you consider this reading tone in as I just talked about.

is the only thing that dictates the pronunciation of a new word.

I thought understanding dictated pronunciation. If I make up a word on the spot it means nothing because you don’t know my definition. If I write it here you will use the rules of English as you understand them to work out a pronunciation. If I had a different one this brand new word with only two people who know it has two distinct pronunciations. If you tell another person it now has three with two of them understanding the “new” pronunciation. Your own rules don’t agree.

We have all been “told by the creator” because he wrote it down for everyone to avoid confusion. Confusion followed anyway

Is that because he wrote it down and the rules indicate a different pronunciation as sensible, or because there are no rules and writing it was a futile exercise?

in part due to the absurd lies people shared online (including yourself) about non-existent rules of English linguistics.

Just because they are inconvenient for you, as well as inconsistent, does not make them non-existent or lies. The rule of law, so to speak, is inconstant but still exists. Breaking the law and getting caught at it comes with repercussions, except when it doesn’t. English has rules that are not always followed. In some cases the exceptions may even outweigh the rule, but we still consider it when entering unknown territory. I will again point to the logic we use when sounding out a word we have only seen written and add looking up a word we have only heard spoken. G makes a sound as in go, except when it doesn’t. This is a rule and an exception.

New and old are not value judgements

Correct, but new and original, used consistently, when it’s been repeatedly pointed out that “new” is functionally the same age yet that’s not been acknowledged, are.

I am listening to you, you just aren’t saying anything of value.

Something of value and something you value are not necessarily equivalent. Referring to someone else’s statements as lies because you don’t agree with them demonstrates a personal lack of value in their statements, but not an objective one. I hope you can see that difference.

You’re attacking me because you don’t like that I haven’t adopted your preferred pronunciation of a word.

My “attacking you”, which I’ll wager is far more limited than you believe, is because you’re doing the verbose equivalent of “nu uh, I’m right” and it’s exhausting.

You don’t like me because I haven’t changed to fit your preference.

No. I think you’re odd because you pronounce a word in a counterintuitive way and refuse to change. I don’t like you because you appear to have a penchant for acting superior and say that’s not what you’re doing.

I don’t care about you

Then you’ve spent an absurd amount of time here for a person and a topic you don’t care about.

because you’re the sort of person who makes value judgements about a person based on their pronunciations of a word.

Everybody in the world makes value judgements about others for something others think is ridiculous. We are all flawed humans. Many of us seek to do better than we did before.

Your entire argument is that I should change because you don’t like the way I talk.

And here you prove that you haven’t listened. In all this time and all these words that hasn’t been my argument at any point.

I’m not asking you to change the way you talk.

No, you’re just giving the impression that my way is the inferior way because yours was first and handed to us by the creator. Mine is based on lies. You’re not asking me to change, you just want me to feel bad if I don’t so you can tell yourself that you’re enlightened.

I’m pointing out the flaw in your thinking, and asking you to think for yourself.

It’s funny how often people who don’t want to say they want people to agree with them say they want others to think for themselves. I couldn’t have come to the place I am by thinking for myself? Which places can I get by doing so?

You also have a difficult time getting someone to accept flaws in their thinking by using visibly flawed thinking.

Don’t listen to internet experts who make shit up.

Like you, who says English has no rules? Or the creator of the gif, who made up a word spelled gif and pronounced jif? Does it matter if they’re not on the Internet because all the way through high school they spent a lot of time on English rules.

That’s a path to ruin

Seems a bit hyperbolic. Will the way I choose to pronounce words just be my downfall, all of society’s, or something in between?

while we’re talking about something silly and inconsequential, your attitude towards reality and dissent

I know I cut off a couple words here, but I needed to highlight that anyone who says someone’s attitude toward reality is inconsequential perhaps needs to consider some introspection before continuing a conversation.

This is all an exercise in futility. You can’t even agree with yourself on basic things (there’s no rules, the only rule is being understood, the creator decides pronunciation) so there is no hope you’ll care enough time try and understand someone you have decided is lying and not thinking for themselves. I hope the people who deal with you day to day get a better version of you than the one you present here, and that at some point you can really dig in to yourself and see the parts of you that are on display in this exchange but you insist aren’t there. I’m sure they extend to other parts of your personality and that you’d be better off without them.

From the top there’s also jiff, meaning hurry. With no more effort that puts me at two and you at one, which is more as I said. Mine are also direct homophones whereas yours relies on a certain practice that I have very different experience on the frequency of than you do.

So you recognize how exceptions work but deny they’re a part of English construction? It’s all just barely organized chaos? Where’s whatever amount of organization coming from if not rules that are frequently excepted?

Yes, I’m well aware that other languages have much better structure. I’m not sure how that means English doesn’t have rules. As a kid surely between you and some friend someone’s house had fewer rules that were less enforced. Did that mean they didn’t have any rules? Of course not!

I’ll admit my falling out of favor statement isn’t scientific. However if we take the other fella’s assertation about it only being pronounced one way to begin with then it’s very much falling out of favor.

Either way I’m not looking to start yet another branch of this argument. Least of all with someone who starts by saying English doesn’t have rules with exceptions because French does.

You are deriding it. Is calling the chess piece a queen instead of a Vizir new? There’s a much bigger gap between that change than this one? Or is it not new because that’s what you know it as?

You can hide behind whatever you want, but your “told by the creator” rhetoric exposes you, even if you can’t admit it to yourself.

It’s not a compelling argument for you to change, again, because you’ve decided your way is the better one. Language, much like any other form of knowledge, has been changing, evolving, and updating with increasing speed for as long as this format has been around. I bet if you think you can figure out the connection.

It may be objectively true that one is the way the creator pronounced it but, as stated, it’s also objectively true that originations don’t dictate the pronunciations of words. I’ve given you plenty of ways that English does operate and how that lends itself to the hard g pronunciation as well as the fact that the so-called “new” pronunciation has been around nearly as long as the other one. Of course you could call that the “old” one, which is a more common counterpoint to new, yet you consistently choose “original”. But I guess neither of us is listening, hmm?

Whatever. Take your ball and go home and keep telling yourself you don’t care while telling everyone else you do with your own choices.

I’ve never had the problem of not being understood.

You are either a uniquely spectacular communicator or a liar. It’s not for me to say which. Regardless that’s not the point. If you use the soft g sound and are not understood then, by your own explanation you are saying it wrong. That’s something you need to contend with.

And regardless of how long the time period was

So no time requirement on archaic then?

there was a time when one guy spoke aloud the word when he invented it.

As is true of every word and yet I’m sure there are words you say differently than the first person. I’ll bet you don’t say the name of the element with the atomic number 13 the same way the man who discovered it does. Not to mention who knows how many words England took from France, mangled, and then got adjusted again in America. Who is the correct first person there, or does the first person only matter with this specific issue?

You can use the new pronunciation

I will as well many others.

as I have for 30+ years,

Me too! Still doesn’t make yours right and mine wrong no matter how hard you try to deride it as “new” when it’s barely newer than the format.

and I will continue to do so

I can’t stop you. I can think you ridiculous for doing so but my suspicion that this would be the only reason I would think that of you diminishes with each response you send.

both are acceptable

Perhaps, but one seems to be falling out of favor. Just like a double space after a period or writing out words greater than ten but less than one hundred.

I could call it a moving picture and not be wrong, doesn’t mean people wouldn’t think me weird for doing so. I would have to deal with that the way you need to deal with what your choices cause people to think of you.

If you don’t like it, that’s a you problem.

Sure, but it won’t stop me from making my own conclusions just like any other thing. The same is true for all of humanity to varying degrees.

people only started using the new pronunciation in the last 10-15.

As someone else pointed out already, this is untrue. While it may not have been popular in your circles, it definitely was in others. I’ve been saying it with a hard g as long as you have with a soft and I’m not the originator either.

English linguistics doesn’t indicate anything at all.

They absolutely do. That’s why you can sound out a word you’ve never seen before. You may not always be right when you do because they indicate, they don’t define.

There are no rules about word construction or pronunciation.

There are, there are just exceptions. For example, an e at the end of the word is silent. I’m certain you can give me a word where it’s not, but there are at least six in this paragraph alone where it is.

if you are understood then you have pronounced them correctly

In this logic if someone has been pronouncing a word all their life with a single pronunciation and travels to another location with a much different accent they can only now be pronouncing the word wrong.

If understanding is also the only metric then a hard g would still be preferable. Not only does a written g tend to make people lean to a hard g in my experience, but there’s more words that could be mistaken for a soft g pronunciation.

You could argue that the original pronunciation is archaic,

Could I not argue that the original pronunciation has fallen out of favor?

the word itself is like 35 years old

Is there a time requirement for pronunciations to become archaic?

since there was only one acceptable pronunciation

Which isn’t a time that existed, as we’ve established

who aren’t likely to change.

Given your stance on language this is absolutely a you problem. If the rest of us collectively decided to understand it as only with a hard g, you would not be understood and therefore be pronouncing it wrong by your own logic.

Telling me not to is what makes English worse.

In your opinion. “Jiggawatt” is not a common English pronunciation outside of back to the future references at this point. People mostly settled on one over the other because it makes sense to pronounce a word a similar way to be more easily understood. It’s not always the case, sure, but I think you’ll find multiple pronunciations are the exception, not the rule. That’s why you can come up with a good handful of such words, but you’ll be using words with single pronunciations to talk about them.

You can find plenty of places where the claim is that it’s a soft g because “choosey devs choose gif”.

Where jiffy is used is irrelevant in that case.

Become popular? It’s been popular roughly for the lifespan of the format. It’s hardly language’s fault the developer wanted to make an unfunny reference to a since forgotten peanut butter slogan.

On the other hand linguistics indicate a hard g sound with the construction of the word, constituent words aside. Plenty of four letter words starting with the gi combo have a hard g, including but not limited to gift which you may notice is very similarly constructed.

Whatever else the English language may throw at us, people appreciate consistency because we can make some sense of the world. A hard g is the consistent, predictable, sensible choice for the limited availability of those virtues English offers.