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Who noticed bad grammar in Old English stylisation?

Discussion in 'Icewind Dale 2' started by chevalier, Mar 10, 2003.

  1. chevalier

    chevalier Knight of Everfull Chalice ★ SPS Account Holder Veteran

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    Particularly 'thee' used as subject (not like incorrect but widely used 'it's me') and 'art' in first person plural, but there were other examples. A high priestess was speaking, not an idiot showing off.

    Old forms seem to be used randomly, just like Latin in spell incantations...
     
  2. teekc Gems: 23/31
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    i not follow grammer, grammar very hard to i. i speak English so long also cannot pick up English grammar. Not to mention i know nothing about Old English word and grammar.
     
  3. Khazraj Gems: 20/31
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    I also found that "dialect" of Old English rather annoying and inauthentic. Perhaps it is meant to indicate a foreigner speaking English?
     
  4. chevalier

    chevalier Knight of Everfull Chalice ★ SPS Account Holder Veteran

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    No, most certainly not. The language is otherwise rich and round. If a foreigner is to speak English like she did, such a foreigner won't make a mistake of that kind. I suppose they tried to show off the old form that is only used in second person singular so that it added flavour and nobody ever would notice. Or maybe they didn't notice themselves that something didn't click. It's sad because the game is addressed primarily to Americans of whom the majority are native speakers. I can't think how one may not know his own language.

    Next example is object pronouns used as subjects *and* with third person singular 'is'. Again, a high priestess. I don't count commoners since their crimes against grammar could possibly be a stylisation.

    Last but not least, there is a number of mistakes in plain contemporary English.

    Note that I'm only picking at grammatical wrongs leaving controversial syntax aside with the sole exception of introducing extinct forms in modern context. Addressing a person as 'you' in plural and then, in the same speech, as 'thou' in singular is not even incorrect, it's strange. And in most cases offensive.
     
  5. Khazraj Gems: 20/31
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    Perhaps you have a point, but most English speakers would not know much about Old English and grammatical correctness. Thou is a word I have never heard spoken by anyone except when quoting literature aloud. We don't use it anymore.

    Some people would ask at the door "who is it?" and I would say (as most people would) "it's me!" So am I grammatically wrong now? Strictly speaking yes, but almost all native English speakers say this and find people who say "it is I" strange and pedantic!

    When I said foreigner I meant that, whatever language the characters of Icewind Dale speak, she spoke that with the accent or dialect useage of a foreigner.

    You are correct here, there were errors, but as I said, most English speakers never use or hear these Old English words and so we "make mistakes" with them. To be fair, how much "Old Church Slavonic" do you know and use? "Thou and thee" have not been used in regular English for between 4 and 6 hundred years. Has Polish not changed over the last 500 years?

    For English speakers, "thou" is not a word we use, so to say "you" here and "thou" there is simply strange, hardly offensive.
     
  6. chevalier

    chevalier Knight of Everfull Chalice ★ SPS Account Holder Veteran

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    I agree with you that most speakers don't know how to use those forms, but those who care to use archaic or literary language should also care to use it correctly. It really doesn't require much effort to look up a word or two and generally writers are supposed to be literate and educated people - certainly should have dealt with literature at some stage. Again, if not, then they should limit to contemporary forms and structures they know - that wouldn't hurt. If you're interested, the people here screw Old Polish badly, but there are hardly any attempts - they're already too busy screwing the modern one :) (Polish is more complex and you won't hear/see as many basic mistakes as in English, but those you hear/see make it really hard to endure). Besides, I'm not picking at how the style or syntax that is to resemble (ie don't copy but give the impression - aka stylisation) a historic one does so, but only at some perfectly verifiably and easily accessible grammatical forms. Since they use them carelessly where it's no need to use them at all they're asking for it. They could always say 'you', 'are' etc. When I gave the example of 'it's me' I meant to avoid people asking if it were not 'it's thee' and to stress those were typical mistakes and not more or less accepted patterns prescriptive grammarians frown on.

    //Also from what I know, 'thou', 'thee', 'art' etc were still used in 18-19th century, especially if the language is a bit more lofty and ornate that sounds like Victorian literature rather than Old English in the sense you mean - athough I agree the Old English sensu stricto is the Saxon tongue of which I probably wouldn't understand a word :rolleyes: As for Old Church Slavonic it's a different concept: a semi-artificial liturgical language associated with Orthodox confession. It's over thousand year old and was probably as similar to the Polish tongue of the time as Saxon Old English sensu stricto was to old North German tongue (sorry, I don't know how the name translates to English) - but please, let's start another thread in whatnots for that before the Vigilant One moves this one :) .
     
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