Grammar

[Deloria]

I know I'm something of a stickler when it comes to grammar but there were several things that really bothered me.

First of all, when clicking on any of the amphorai with the "Hand" icon, Amy goes off on a tangent about how Cassima used to play hide and seek in the castles and knocked over one of the vases. She then goes on to add that Graham could not fit into it any "easier" than a small girl.
It should be "more easily" as it's an adverb, not an adjective. Speaking properly is not reserved for the upper classes and even if it were, Graham is a monarch.

On the Isle of the Sacred Mountain, we are told by the oracle to "Seek he who rules on the Isle of Mists". A sentence cannot have two subjects. I appreciate that you were trying to make it sound archaic, but that's just silly because back when English was declined, no one would have said this because no one would have understood it.

Those are the only two I've found so far, though I've not done much clicking on many more random objects.

EDIT: I also don't mean to sound snobbish or rude. I only wish to critique constructively.   If I come across as either, I apologise; it's 5am and I've been up all night.

[Cez]

I know I'm something of a stickler when it comes to grammar but there were several things that really bothered me.

First of all, when clicking on any of the amphorai with the "Hand" icon, Amy goes off on a tangent about how Cassima used to play hide and seek in the castles and knocked over one of the vases. She then goes on to add that Graham could not fit into it any "easier" than a small girl.
It should be "more easily" as it's an adverb, not an adjective. Speaking properly is not reserved for the upper classes and even if it were, Graham is a monarch.

On the Isle of the Sacred Mountain, we are told by the oracle to "Seek he who rules on the Isle of Mists". A sentence cannot have two subjects. I appreciate that you were trying to make it sound archaic, but that's just silly because back when English was declined, no one would have said this because no one would have understood it.

Those are the only two I've found so far, though I've not done much clicking on many more random objects.

EDIT: I also don't mean to sound snobbish or rude. I only wish to critique constructively.  If I come across as either, I apologise; it's 5am and I've been up all night.

For the Oracle one... how often do living beings speak grammatically correct?

That's all I'll say

[oberonqa]

Unless of course, you happen to be a Language Professor... in which case it's not only your passion in life to be grammatically correct when speaking.... it's also your job.

[KatieHal]

For the Oracle one... how often do living beings speak grammatically correct?

That's all I'll say

Much less vague oracular beings at that.

[B'rrr]

Unless of course, you happen to be a Language Professor... in which case it's not only your passion in life to be grammatically correct when speaking.... it's also your job.

But neither is a guarentee that you are always correct. They might make less mistakes then others, but sometimes they do, just like my math professor has made a few slipups in his department.

Also the statement;

Speaking properly is not reserved for the upper classes and even if it were, Graham is a monarch.

makes little sense. Has ones social status anything to do with how great your grammer is? I thought that was something you learn through education? Royalty probably have better chances on getting a good education, but even so. I have gotten the same education as others and I make tons of grammatical mistakes while they might suck at math. The same applies to the upper class, they might get better education then others but that doesn't guarentee superior grammatical skills.

However, the line about the vase is spoken by the narrator, who is hardly human (no offence Amy  ) from an ingame perspective, so you could argue that everything the narrator says has to be flawless. Any gramatical error by in game characters can fall under human error and should not worry about that at all (except for, if it happends a lot, you could petition for better school teachers)

[Delling]

Also the statement;

Speaking properly is not reserved for the upper classes and even if it were, Graham is a monarch.

makes little sense. Has ones social status anything to do with how great your grammer is? I thought that was something you learn through education? Royalty probably have better chances on getting a good education, but even so. I have gotten the same education as others and I make tons of grammatical mistakes while they might suck at math. The same applies to the upper class, they might get better education then others but that doesn't guarentee superior grammatical skills.

However, the line about the vase is spoken by the narrator, who is hardly human (no offence Amy  ) from an ingame perspective, so you could argue that everything the narrator says has to be flawless. Any gramatical error by in game characters can fall under human error and should not worry about that at all (except for, if it happends a lot, you could petition for better school teachers)

I think you took the edge of that statement incorrectly: she is in fact saying (if I understand it correctly) that one's social status SHOULDN'T correlate to one's grammatical precision but rather that EVERYONE should be more grammatically precise.

[darthkiwi]

The same applies to the upper class, they might get better education then others but that doesn't guarentee superior grammatical skills.

I wouldn't knock the potential of royal education: Henry VIII spoke English (of course) but also French, Italian, Latin, and possibly Greek. He and other high-ups in court were so well-versed that it was not necessarily unusual for them to communicate in a language other than the vernacular; he wrote Anne Boleyn love letters in French, for example. Queen Elizabeth I, some 50 years later, also translated Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy from Latin in an astonishingly short space of time, apparently beating the record set by other notable translators such as King Alfred the Great. Bearing in mind this was in a time when most people were illiterate, it's quite striking how intense the education of royals could be.

Regarding the "Seek he who rules on the Isle of Mists" problem - I could be missing something (and I'm not the most painstaking grammar-hound) but I think the phrase is not grammatically incorrect. "Seek" is evidently an imperative, so is the sentence not grammatically equivalent to "Please find the key which is in the drawer"? I do agree that "he who rules on the Isle of Mists" could be improved by saying "he who rules OVER the Isle of Mists", since "he who rules on the Isle of Mists" does not imply that the subject is ruler of the Isle, but only that he performs that act of ruling on the Isle. (I mean, it could technically mean "Seek the man who measures things with a ruler on the Isle of Mists.")

[B'rrr]

I did saw the crown prince of my country make a grammatical error...    Just saying that, even though the upper class has the potential to be better at grammar or even master it completely through their education, it doesn't mean that they will do so and that everyone will be equally good at it. And even if you would have impeccable grammar normally, it is still no guarentee that you won't make any mistakes at all.

I think you took the edge of that statement incorrectly: she is in fact saying (if I understand it correctly) that one's social status SHOULDN'T correlate to one's grammatical precision but rather that EVERYONE should be more grammatically precise.

I know that, but stating that it is "not reserved " does imply that  (besides the point that others should be aswell) atleast the upper class are speaking properly, which is not always the case.

[Deloria]

The oracle is infinitely wise and old. I highly doubt she would have made such a basic mistake just in order to sound mysterious. Anyway, you're quite right, Darthkiwi (also, welcome back ). I wrote down the technicalities last night and am just now getting around to posting them.

"Seek" is indeed an imperative. This also means the subject is hidden "(You)! Seek..." (If only we had a vocative case ) Anyway, it ought to be "Seek him" and not "Seek he". If the sentence were to end there, you would hardly say "Seek he" or "Look for he".   "Seek" is a transitive verb, meaning it requires an object. As for the other clause "He who rules on the isle of mists" is not a full sentence. "Who rules on the isle of Mists" is an attribute and a relative clause, meaning it can apply to a subject or an object. The object of one clause can quite well be the subject of the next. You see this quite well in Latin, because the relative pronouns are declined there and you know what purpose the noun or pronoun has. Relative pronouns are also declined in English, but no one bothers with "Whom" these days.

Seek                             him      who
----------------------------  ----      -----
Subject and predicate  object  pronoun relating to "him", but introducing a new clause in which "him" is the subject

rules                on the isle of Mists
------                ------------------------
predicate         local adverb

I did saw the crown prince of my country make a grammatical error...    Just saying that, even though the upper class has the potential to be better at grammar or even master it completely through their education, it doesn't mean that they will do so and that everyone will be equally good at it. And even if you would have impeccable grammar normally, it is still no guarentee that you won't make any mistakes at all.

The problem is that authorities and politicians quite often do that in order to relate to those who are not as well educated. And then we're surprised when elected officials turn out to be idiots.

[Delling]

Oh, yay! Grammar!

(I mean, it could technically mean "Seek the man who measures things with a ruler on the Isle of Mists.")

Only in a deeply archaic way... but then, we're begging off on the oracle's ancientness anyway...

The oracle is infinitely wise and old. I highly doubt she would have made such a basic mistake just in order to sound mysterious.

*agrees with all of the grammar*

I will offer two alternatives.

1) She is an ancient being and deeply set in her ways and values poetry over grammatical precision. As such, she's only going for assonance anyway (repetition of vowel sounds).

2) {the stretchier alternative} In Latin and Greek, there is the process of "attraction" by which a relative pronoun instead of maintaining the case proper to its function in the dependent clause is "attracted" into the case of its antecedent. (One can think of this as a kind of noun-adjective concord between the adjective clause and noun it modifies.) In this case, it is possible that the Winged Ones (who have a very Greco-Roman feel) once had a language of similar structure and mechanics, etc. and yet had a process of attraction which worked in reverse: the antecedent was attracted into the case proper to the relative pronoun in its own clause. When they shifted to whatever the common language spoken in that world is, they especially their more ancient members would likely maintain such grammatical quirks without even really recognizing that they had done so. As we're not about to get a treatise on the language of the Winged Ones anytime soon, this should make a sufficient explanation for the willing suspension of disbelief (and the willing suspension of Occam's Razor).


Also...

What was a nearly insuperable set of puzzles known as the Cliffs of Logic, has now been replaced with a grand staircase winding its way up the mountain side leading to the city of the Winged Ones.

there's a comma separating a subject from its verb. Kill it now! Please!

[wilco64256]

For the record I thought the grammar in this game was remarkably good.

"All your base are belong to us."

That's all I have to say about it.

[B'rrr]

The oracle is infinitely wise and old. I highly doubt she would have made such a basic mistake just in order to sound mysterious.

If that is the case then, following your logic, Yoda should have (near)perfect grammer aswell

[Delling]

The oracle is infinitely wise and old. I highly doubt she would have made such a basic mistake just in order to sound mysterious.

If that is the case then, following your logic, Yoda should have (near)perfect grammer aswell

Interesting point, B'rrr. However, Yoda's grammar is completely in keeping with my second theory: that it's a peculiarity of her native grammar. (Actually, that's the explanation I use for Yoda's strange syntax.)

[Deloria]

Just because I think Mandarin is hideous, I will add that syntax is not really grammar.

[Cez]

The oracle is infinitely wise and old. I highly doubt she would have made such a basic mistake just in order to sound mysterious.

If that is the case then, following your logic, Yoda should have (near)perfect grammer aswell

Infinite age and wisdom have nothing to do with human's (or human like creatures) tendency to err. That has to do more with being self-conscious, which, considering she was just shaken by an evil power, would be hard for her to be thinking about the correct grammar in her speech.     

[Deloria]

Forgive me, but no one would ever make that mistake in RL. The oracle was obviously just trying to sound mysterious and ended up sounding rather daft instead. It rather ruined it for me.

[Tawmis]

Forgive me, but no one would ever make that mistake in RL. The oracle was obviously just trying to sound mysterious and ended up sounding rather daft instead. It rather ruined it for me.

In their defense, while I am certainly not English Major (was headed that way but never finished college!) - in my own writings, I have often done the same thing the Oracle had said to do - exactly what I think they did - to sound all mysterious!

So um - I raise my hand to making that mistake! - both in my own writing, and undoubtedly, in real life as well.

[KuroShiro]

Just because I think Mandarin is hideous, I will add that syntax is not really grammar.

I will give my two cents as someone with a degree in Linguistics.

It really depends what you are talking about. The actual result of the study of syntax is called a "Grammar", which is essentially a machine which you can input any words into that will produce a "Grammatical" sentence in the language as long as you follow the machine's rules. More recently Optimality Theory is overriding that but that is a bit more in-depth than anyone in this forum probably cares about. The question of course is what exactly grammatical is. What you are describing and arguing about is not grammar; it is prescriptive language, which is essentially meaningless in speech. People from, say, Brooklyn will speak a vastly different form of English and have a vastly different view of what is grammatical than someone from, say, Manchester. However, as long as they can be understood by other speakers of their language, they are correct.

Languages are always changing, and what is considered grammatical in speech is constantly changing with them. If you correct someone based on prescriptive grammar, but you understood what they said, then you are wrong. Sorry.

[Cez]

Forgive me, but no one would ever make that mistake in RL. The oracle was obviously just trying to sound mysterious and ended up sounding rather daft instead. It rather ruined it for me.

emm, so you are saying you always speak grammatically correct. Always. 100% of the time. Never make a mistake while you speak. The same way you never get a quick sum in your head wrong, never, better than a calculator.

Hmm, I think I will save that for my robot characters

[wilco64256]

Sometimes I use bad grammar deliberately just to make sure people are paying attention.  Or to point out to my students that I teach math and not English and to stop asking me for help with English homework.