Hello parser-making friends! Until a few short months ago, I had never tested another author’s game, but since that time I have partially or completely tested some ten or twelve games. In the course of doing so, several recurring themes have emerged, so I figured it might be of some help to publish …

“information” & “informasjon” come from latin, it’s not a loanword.

At what point should all languages be freezed? Emytologi of “information” (from Wiktionary): From Middle English informacion , enformacion , borrowed from Anglo-Norman informacioun , enformation , Old French information , from Latin īnfōrmātiō (“formation, conception; education”), from the partic…

Taking this opportunity to recommend the book Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution by RF Kuang-- it’s about languages and the difference between them and how they overlap and change, all in a fantasy alternate history of Oxford in the 19th cent…

I knew “information” was a bad example, so I shouldn’t have said anything, and I’m aware that Latin is the root of perhaps the majority of the English words I’m referring to. It was more of a whimsical rant, it wasn’t meant to be a crusade against inevitable factors of language change!

[image] Henrik Åsman: (As a Swedish speaker I want “smorgasbord” and “ombudsman” back…) No backsies!

I want “backsies” for Flemish! Gimme!

[image] Henrik Åsman: (As a Swedish speaker I want “smorgasbord” and “ombudsman” back…) How about ‘bork bork bork’? (I am old.)

The need for “localization” (note my use of “z” rather than an “s”!) in IF is an interesting topic. I would never expect Americanized captions in film or TV, or an Americanized version of a novel. Parser IF’s need for text input makes it unique, which I have never really thought about.

[image] AmandaB: This has never bothered me. If the available exits are clearly stated, then I can’t go that way because there’s no exit there. Outside locations are a tad different. If there’s a river to the south, I should get a response for going south that I can’t swim, or I don’t want to ge…

Not to necro an old thread, but I’m going to necro an old thread. I wondered what people’s feelings were about Inform’s “You feel nothing unexpected.” Of course you want to get rid of it when the thing in question can’t be touched (the moon, for instance), but how much effort do you expect to go in…

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