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  1. #1
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    Balipu's Avatar
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    Grammar of Sharlayan

    I tried to look at the other threads, and I didn't see this anywhere else.

    As we know, the Archons all come from a place called Sharlayan.
    All well and good but the adjective form also happens to be sharlayan (As in Y'shtola is a sharlayan conjurer).

    Mind you English is not my mother tongue, but as far as I know this makes absolutely no sense in English grammar. The correct form would be either:

    Sharlaya(the place) - sharlayan(comming from the place)

    or

    Sharlayan(the place) - sharlayanian(comming from the place)

    A small matter but it has bothered me for a long time now.
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  2. #2
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    gornotck's Avatar
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    Bunni Stormjaeger
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    Fortunately, English is flexible enough to grammar anything and everything.
    To use examples, it would be similar enough to be said to be the same as saying that Y'shtola is a Boston cop, a Georgetown logger, or a London architect.
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  3. #3
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    Bixby's Avatar
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    Ampersand Kai
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    Quote Originally Posted by gornotck View Post
    Fortunately, English is flexible enough to grammar anything and everything.
    To use examples, it would be similar enough to be said to be the same as saying that Y'shtola is a Boston cop, a Georgetown logger, or a London architect.
    Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

    You're right about using the names of places as adjectives (or adverbs; "Boston strong") without modification. But Balipu is right about the nouns. We don't call someone "a Boston." We tack -an, -ian, or -ite on the end of place names to turn them into nouns that mean "a person from <place>." I can't think of any examples where the name of the place is used, unmodified/unaccompanied, as the noun to refer to its natives.

    And I'd say -ite would probably be the one in this case, as we tend to not double-up on -an or -ian. (Edit: Or perhaps -er.)
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    Last edited by Bixby; 10-21-2014 at 04:08 AM.
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  4. #4
    Player
    Balipu's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bixby View Post
    Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

    You're right about using the names of places as adjectives (or adverbs; "Boston strong") without modification. But Balipu is right about the nouns. We don't call someone "a Boston." We tack -an, -ian, or -ite on the end of place names to turn them into nouns that mean "a person from <place>." I can't think of any examples where the name of the place is used, unmodified/unaccompanied, as the noun to refer to its natives.

    And I'd say -ite would probably be the one in this case, as we tend to not double-up on -an or -ian. (Edit: Or perhaps -er.)
    Sharlayanite? Sounds good. Anyway Sharlayan is in Dravania and we will get to Dravania in Heavensward so it would be nice to resolve the issue untill then.
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  5. #5
    Player
    gornotck's Avatar
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    Bunni Stormjaeger
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    The thing is that we CAN say that Y'shtola, a Sharlayan of the city-state of Sharlayan, is a Sharlayan indeed though the contextual clue that by saying that Y'shtola is a Sharlayan so she is a native of Sharlayan thereby.
    Does this come up usually? Not really. Nicknames, mostly, where people are referred to as 'Boston' or 'Dallas' or any number of cities, states, counties, countries, parishes, or other regional identifying nomenclatures.
    It is unusual, perhaps, but in no way erroneous.
    (0)