Continuing the discussion from Parser games need abbreviations:
The two most common synonyms for this acquisition action are TAKE and GET. Which one do you prefer?
As a TAKEr myself, GET seems strange to me.
- TAKE
- GET
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Neither. I use PICK UP.
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- PICK UP X
- PICK X UP
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Just for reference, the Inform 7 Standard Rules include TAKE, GET, PICK UP X, PICK X UP, CARRY, and HOLD. For some reason, they exclude LIFT, GRASP, OBTAIN, HOIST, GRIP, CLASP, and GRAB.
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Need YANK for the vim users
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TAKE is weird. GET is the obvious choice. 
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My first IF was Pirate Adventure on the TI-99/4A. The manual used TAKE, so I did too. But a line at the start said you could abbreviate to 3 letters, so I used TAK. A few years later, some shareware adventure on the PC taught me GET, which actually saved a letter.
When I introduced my daughter to Wishbringer at age 11, she used GRAB.
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Come to think of it, Inform 7 doesnât include SWIPE either.
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And for the emacs users! 
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Now that seems to be a synonym for PULL.
I figure most of our preferences on this topic are lazy and donât require much justification. Whatever you started with in your first significant IF experience is probably what you prefer.
Mystery House and Wizard and the Princess were GET games, so Iâm a getter. And if I hadnât been, I would have switched to it later when I became one of the great typing economists.
-Wade
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I assume youâre HOISTing our legs here.
-Wade
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I did not know this, as I have done my best to learn nothing about emacs.
EDIT: Apparently âyankâ in emacs is equivalent to âput,â not âyankâ in vim? How confusing.
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PICK UP X for nouns, PICK X UP for pronouns! (PICK UP THE APPLE, PICK IT UP, but not *PICK UP IT.)
Itâs one of the fascinating little quirks of English syntax. Pronouns are mostly equivalent to nouns, but there are certain things where theyâre not, mostly involving phrasal verbs (where a verb and preposition combine to create a new meaning).
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There is a source and a destination; the terminology is likely different because it describes taking something from a source (the clipboard or the kill ring) and inserting it at a destination (where the cursor is).
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And now Iâm wondering if there are games that play around with different verbs that are in some sense equivalent, yet have different connotations, and thus render different output or where what the player actually does depends on which version of the verb one usesâŚ
Like, perhaps youâre exploring a museum and thereâs several artifacts on display.Trying to take, grab, or get the artifacts produces something like âthat would be stealingâ and do nothing, but verbs like steal, swipe, or nab would let you actually take the artifacts⌠and perhaps this and other variant verbs could feed into some kind of morality or personality* system⌠and if another location in the game is a store, take would work to grab items on sale, butthe game wouldnât let you leave the store with unpaid goods in your inventory unless you use the shoplift verb to exit.
*E.g. take might be a neutral verb while grab nets points on an informal score and acquire nets sophistication points⌠and then we could get into adverbsâŚ
Iâm also thinking of the difference between drop, toss, and put down and how different items could react differently to each(like, perhaps droping a glass figure makes it break but putting it down leaves it in-tact while something tougher might survive being dropped, but still break if tossedâŚ
language is a funny thing and even synonyms can have vastly different meanings depending on context.
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PURLOIN or bust.
(Imagining someone whose first IF was Treasures of a Slaverâs Kingdom and who is always angry when other games donât understand âSEIZEâ.)
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Already used as a debug command in Inform 7. Otherwise it would be a great synonym.
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Fortunately, the next version of Inform will let author-specified commands override debug commands!
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I know. 
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