Call me a nitpicker, but this really breaks immersion for me (pseudo-Middle English)

See the attached screenshot with the contents of a book I found. Am I the only one whose gears are ground by this kind of ineptitude?

 

Interesting take. I have to admit that this level of criticism is probably too technical for the vast majority of games, a huge chunk of whom don't count even standard American English as a primary language. Still, I did get a kick out of the photo. ...But I have to admit that I tend to skim the books rather than read them closely, so not a big deal for me personally.

One of my pet peeves also. A bit of an embarrassing oversight too considering how meticulous Josh is about languages...

'cant' is also an alternative version of 'chant', in addition to being a term for speaking in general.

 

'thine hands' does suggest a silent 'h'. some dialects do have this as the standard, and it's become the norm for a lot of words that didn't have it previously ('hero' for one)

 

sees/seeth and touches/toucheth do indeed appear to be errors.

Edited April 3, 2015 by waretaringo

I actually think the example you've posted is really well done.

 

PoE is not historical fiction, but if it's comparable to any real-world past period, that period would probably be somewhere vaguely nineteenth century-ish, just going by the guns, clothing, transportation, artificial lighting in cities, etc etc.

 

That's much later than the period where actual Middle English would make sense -- Modern English is considered to begin around the fifteenth century.

 

What you DID have in later periods was specific religious groups using partly archaic language among themselves. The Quakers, for example, used the archaic "thee" -- but they used it incorrectly by the grammar of the periods when it was standard usage (For example, they would say both "Thee are beautiful" and "I love thee" where Shakesperean English would have "Thou art beautiful" and "I love thee")

 

This is a pretty good analogue to religious usage among the old-fashioned Eothasians.

 

Anyway, all of the linguistic references in PoE are altered from their real-world origins. Look at Pallegina's "Valilian" vocabulary -- it's Latin-ish, but not really Italian or Spanish or any other real Romance language. Her "aimico" obviously parallels "amico" or "amigo" but it's not a word that actually exists, for example.

Shows that Eothasians are boorish.

 

I stumble over errors like these, too, but sadly, I'm not particularly upset about them; they've become too frequent, I fear. "Huh? Writer obviously didn't know what he was doing; let's move on."

Except when it's intentional, but this is even rarer.

 

Edit: Pallegina's Vailish is a recognisably different language. In this case, it's a set of very specific endings in a completely English poem. I doubt that that's on the same level.

But the explanation with the old-fashioned Eothasians is nice (and probably true).

Edited April 3, 2015 by Varana

NITPICKER!!!!!!!

 

 

(Have you ever considered that maybe it's the people of Eora who have **** grammar?)

Edited April 3, 2015 by Tartantyco

Any chance that you're teaching my english class at Niels Brock Business School in Copenhagen? Sarah; Is that you??? 

Didn't find the book in question. Only remember stumbling upon one instance of ME where the pronouns were used correctly and was pleasantly surprised that at least Obsidian writers had done their research. Apparently not all of them as it turns out.

Edited April 3, 2015 by vattghern

My native language is not English, but I strive to write/speak correct British English whenever I communicate with others in this language, just to be respectful with the tongue I'm using, and because I like being correct. As such, I normally take "lessons" on medieval English from media sources like films or video-games, and personally I think what this text is doing here is a disservice to themselves and the English tongue in general.

 

Many people, like me, might be taking these texts as an example to add to their own knowledge, because it's fair to assume that an English-native staff actually knows how to spell their stuff, especially something that will be seen by everyone across the world. Then you find that this assumption was a wrong one, as the English-native world-wide released product is utilising English wrongly.

 

It's a minor thing, of course, but if I was in charge of the writing of those lore texts I'd be disappointed, or yelling at the guy that allowed for it to go through in that state.

See also John Donne's Holy Sonnets (16th - 17th century):

 

"Repair me now, for now mine end doth haste"

 

"And thou like Adamant draw mine iron heart."

 

"And let mine amorous soul court Thy mild dove"

 

etc.

You're a nitpicker!

 

And you're quite right, too, that is a funny error. I'd be tweaked by that for just a sec and get over it, but some folks should not respond like that or we'll never have any sort of order to this whole language thing.

Any chance that you're teaching my english class at Niels Brock Business School in Copenhagen? Sarah; Is that you??? 

As far as this Watcher remembers, I am not Sarah, nor am I female in this life. While an English teacher I may be, Copenhagen is not where I am at... in this instance of my soul

Well being a RPG fan and nitpicking on english grammar did make me confuse you for my english teacher. 

 

Then again; Her husband works at Ubisoft so she probably only plays their lousy games. 

For all the other grammar nazi like myself, here are three more nits to pick  

 

(I really need to start charging people for doing this)

 

http://imgur.com/a/vspcK

One more, in case any Obsidian QA mole lurks here, fishing for errors to fix in the next patch... 

 

http://imgur.com/mzKfAVr

The spanish translation is awfull, don't worry

Nitpicker...

See the attached screenshot with the contents of a book I found. Am I the only one whose gears are ground by this kind of ineptitude?

 

I'm probably one of the biggest proponents for correct grammar and the importance of it on this forum, however it's a game in a fictional world. Who is to that isn't grammatically correct in that world? Who is to say that even if it is grammatically incorrect for that world, that the fictional author of the book didn't fudge it up.

 

So what? Chalk it up to a grammatically inept monk, priest, historian, or whomever wrote the book, and move on. The contents of no in game book should break your immersion unless it's contents have real world references, references to something that doesn't belong in Eora (ie: book is schematics for the Death Star), or breaks the 4th wall in some manner.

Never play the Thief games, OP.

If Obsidian caves to the grammar Nazis and changes the content of a game I already paid for, I will never buy another product from them. Freedom of speech trumps grammatical censorship!

 

[/sarcasm]

Here's the road to enlightenment, OP:

 

See the attached screenshot with the contents of a book I found. Am I the only one whose gears are ground by this kind of ineptitude?

 

 

 

It's written that way because there's a hidden code inside.

 

I don't want to spoil it for you, so I'll just leave it at that.

Never play the Thief games, OP.

such a taffer

 

See the attached screenshot with the contents of a book I found. Am I the only one whose gears are ground by this kind of ineptitude?

 

 

 

It's written that way because there's a hidden code inside.

 

I don't want to spoil it for you, so I'll just leave it at that.

 

OMG I just unlocked Sheng Long!