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*Renamed* Hobby Terminology Pet Peeves *Off Topic*


Turragor

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"Broken."

If games were limited to rock paper scissors, there'd still be a community of rock players arguing that "paper is broken, scissors work fine."

If I'm allowed more than one then crunch, OP, mathhammer, unbalanced, worthless (in reference to an army or warscroll) etc etc.

 

Also, not a specific phrase but I'd love it if the annual whinge-fest about GW's prices every time they go up could be banned that would be bliss.

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On the internet hyperbole is a problem.

In undergrad I studied philosophy.  The most important thing I learned is that philosophers and scientists never make declarations unless they have been thought about for years and years.  When working through their initial reactions to something new, they use phrases like "I'm inclined to think" or "It seems troublesome" or "It may be important to note".  They don't want to look foolish by making conclusions that are not thought out or in disciplines they don't understand.  (I don't play the Najdorf in chess regardless of my expert rating and if I did I would look like a novice as I don't understand a single thing about the opening!)  This could do a lot for the community.

This of course doesn't mean don't get excited.  We are still bashing in the skulls of 'umies with choppas and hackas after all and the game should indeed be exciting.

I also like using the phrase "good matchup" and explaining what that means.  You are favored to win, you have a slight advantage, or an easier game, you will win more matches than you lose.  This doesn't mean that balance is broken or there are major problems and shouldn't be taken as such.  This goes back to avoiding hyperbole.

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4 hours ago, RuneBrush said:

Any sentence that begins with the word "Obviously"

I saw a comment the other day that said something like, "It's obvious what the rule means, anyone who can read English can see". Yes, that's why there were 4 pages of discussion about what it actually is supposed to mean.

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I hate the over-reliance on shortening of phrases to make cute, clever, little gems like "captasus." This isn't pagers or Twitter. Use your words.

Broken is a specific word I hate in our hobby context as well.  A dropped tea cup may be broken. A TV that can't turn on may be broken. A foe who collapses into a pile of crying flesh after you've just beaten him for the 100th time in a row may be broken. A unit in the game is not broken.

Edit: Oh! Also! Common sense. To hell with you, your family, and the head of your local PTA if you think that common sense is actually a thing at all, let alone a thing that can be used to end a discussion like a mic drop or "faith." 

No.  It's not "common sense." You just can't be bothered to support your position, and your ego is so darn huge that you actually think that the world view that has resulted from you hyper-specific upbringing, cultural environment, and life circumstances must be the way things are for everyone. 

Grrrr.

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In general, we actually have a pretty good community, especially when compared to most others within the "geek sphere".

Spend a few weeks in video games or comic books and get back to me. I once saw a guy write in capital letters that Hiroshima was "NOT ENOUGH" after Capcom (i.e. a Japanese company) put Birdie into Street Fighter 5 ahead of whoever he/she - and, let's face it, its a "he" - wanted to be included in the game's original cast.

I'm not into comics at all, but I've heard that some of those guys are the walking embodiment of Poe's Law.

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33 minutes ago, Aryann said:

"to squat sth"

The first time I read that it was funny. The second it was ok. The 10th f.time I see that word in a single thread I want to squat that person.

This is good - the exact sort of thing I'd add to this thread.  It's not even just the use of "squat", it's the misuse of squat in different circumstances.

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How about "narrative", "themed", and "high concept"?

As note; I've searched a lot for a description or definition of "high concept" in regards to our hobby or art in general, but not found anything. I've seen and heard of armies being described as "high concept army", but never fully understood the underlying definition. I'm guessing it doesn't actually have anything to do with the number of colours used in said army - so what does it mean? What's the difference between that, and "themed"?

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29 minutes ago, amysrevenge said:

... it's the misuse of squat in different circumstances.

Yes! Like calling every scandal a "gate." It was the Watergate Hotel. The scandal was called Watergate, not because water was at the center of the problem, but because it was the place. Spygate, deflategate, etc. are certainly instances of Patriot foul play, but the "gate" usage is beyond stupid and lazy. 

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For me (and this is the kind of thing that stops me posting on certain forums) is the kind of people that overly praise or gush on about someone's painting or modelling - usually without any context or explanation of why they like it so much. 

This is not to say it's wrong to appreciate the hobby done by other people (quite the opposite).

Just some people make me cringe with their "ohhh best thing I've ever seen!" and "I've never be as good as you, might as well give up trying now" mentalities. 

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High-concept should me that something has an aesthetic value that is both very striking, and also very easy parse at a glance. Some themed armies communicate their theme eloquently without words, others require an explanation, they would be less high-concept - that's my take anyway. Like if you have to explain the lore behind your army, they might still be really well themed, but not high-concept. It's a rather woolly term in the first place, I agree.

My own pet peeves aren't really phrases, but any sense of ownership people profess to have of the hobby. Every time a release comes out and people get mad that it isn't their army that gets a release always bugs me intensely, especially when those releases (Battle of Vedros/Thunder and Blood) are squarely aimed at creating new hobbyists. It's an incredibly myopic and exclusionary viewpoint. I rarely see it here though.

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1 hour ago, tolstedt said:

On the internet hyperbole is a problem.

Not just a problem -- it's the worst thing ever in the history of the universe!

1 hour ago, Sleboda said:

I hate the over-reliance on shortening of phrases to make cute, clever, little gems like "captasus." This isn't pagers or Twitter. Use your words.

WTF is "captasus"?

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I've run out of likes but when I get off the bus I'm gonna have to quote the stuff I love the most so far. 

You are all right. 

I think the latest one that popped into my head should be in my top 3. It is related to the hated "broken" and a kind of opposing force to "viable" :

Unplayable 

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1 hour ago, Arkiham said:

Loving this thread, it's like a self help group meeting.

 

My names ark and I hate .... 

 

Brilliant lol

If we all agree to never use the phrases and words in here we will have to mime instead of speak. 

Oh what a wonderful world it would be. A quiet Internet. 

Haha kidding 

I think 

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7 hours ago, Turragor said:

Yeah we can expand it to hobby language peeves!

In that case you could add: "Pro painted" on ebay models.

Oh, my Dog.  Don't even get me started on that one.  I see so much junk on eBay that has no evidence of professionalism whatsoever, mold lines, gaps, thick coats obscuring detail, no evidence of shading or highlighting, overpainting, poor color palette, untidy brushwork...

I think when anyone misuses the phrase "pro-painted" on eBay, we should be permitted to smack them upside the head with a sock full of metal miniatures and stab them with paint brushes. >:(

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"Orruk," "Ogor," "Duardin," "Aelf," "Seraphon," "Sylvaneth," "Gargant," and the like all deserve to be flushed. I don't care what GW's legal department wants me to call them, they're orcs, ogres, dwarves, elves, lizardmen, tree-men, giants, and always will be.

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Rape. Every time I see someone use that term in toy soldiers/video games/out of context, it makes my blood boil. There's nothing funny/cute/clever about it. I really, really hate it. Might be the patriarch in me, being a dad of little girls has increased my hate of using the term so loosely. Hate it.

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Referring to WHFB as low fantasy, and AoS as high fantasy as a point of contrast, when in reality both are most certainly high fantasy, the definition, from wikipedia:

A subgenre of fantasy fiction involving "nonrational happenings that are without causality or rationality because they occur in the rational world where such things are not supposed to occur."

Now, WHFB with its wizards and chaos/other gods and armies of rats with weaponised rocks and legions of shuffling skeletons propelled forwards by a giant floating skeleton/other skeletons/vampires hardly qualifies as low fantasy, even if it has some elements that are more down to earth (such as the parts of the Empire that were ripped from the Holy Roman Empire).

AoS may be above and beyond in terms of who has the highest high fantasy, but they both clearly belong in the same genre, imo.

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