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Thread: grammar check

  1. #1
    Player
    Tastydoorstop's Avatar
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    Feb 2012
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    Tasty Doorstop
    World
    Maduin
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    Red Mage Lv 90

    grammar check

    When submitting a bug report, please use the below template and thoroughly fill out the necessary information.

    https://drive.google.com/file/d/1o4R...ew?usp=sharing

    Date & Time: 5-6-22
    Frequency: all the time
    World name: Excalibur
    Character name: Tasty Doorstop
    NPC name: Venat
    Party or solo: Solo
    Area and coordinates: x9.6 y 18
    Steps:
    1. Story +
    2. Quest line "A Past, Not Yet Come To Pass"
    3. Talked to Venat and the following sentence text is out of order
    it reads as "See you the woman standing in from of the yonder building? Her name is Imsene."
    when is should read as "You see the woman......"

    "See" and "you" need to be swapped.

    See attached pic...
    (0)

  2. #2
    Player
    Breakbeat's Avatar
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    Character
    Billy Shears
    World
    Goblin
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    Summoner Lv 90
    This isn't a bug. It's simply VSO (Verb -> Object -> Subject) instead of the normal SVO (Subject -> Verb -> Object) that we speak daily. This isn't wrong, per se, it's simply a stylistic choice. Lots and lots of old or antiquated speaking styles are used throughout this game. One of the most famous being Urianger and his "must needs," as in, "We must needs reconstruct Titan from thine memories," which also is not a bug.

    There are others that I am sure will be able to talk more in-depth about when, if ever, this kind of speech was prominently used by English speakers in our real world. The only guess I would venture is medieval times, but I only get that from movies, not any actual historical knowledge. I can say with confidence that SVO, VSO and OSV are all currently in use in different languages around our globe. Some common examples would be English for SVO, Arabic for VSO and forms of Chinese for OSV.

    But, my point is, it's a valid form of fantasy dialogue, not a bug. Famously, Yoda speaks similarly, but he generally does OSV ("Patience you must have, young Padawan,"), and we wouldn't call his speech patterns a bug or mistake. It's just the way the creators wrote the dialogue.
    (4)
    Last edited by Breakbeat; 05-07-2022 at 08:55 AM. Reason: Clarity.

  3. #3
    Player
    Iscah's Avatar
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    Aurelie Moonsong
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    Bismarck
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    It's not just a stylistic order choice; moving the verb to the front turns it into a question.

    In modern English, to turn the statement "you see the woman" into a question, we have to introduce a second verb: we ask "do you see the woman?"

    The other format doesn't need this extra verb, and instead becomes a question by the reordering of the existing words.
    (3)

  4. #4
    Player
    Iscah's Avatar
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    Aurelie Moonsong
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    Quote Originally Posted by Breakbeat View Post
    One of the most famous being Urianger and his "must needs," as in, "We must needs reconstruct Titan from thine memories," which also is not a bug.
    All the characters use "must needs", not just Urianger.

    "Thine memories" would be wrong, though. In that usage, you pick between thy/thine like we still do between a/an depending on whether the following word starts with a consonant or vowel.
    (2)

  5. #5
    Player
    Breakbeat's Avatar
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    Billy Shears
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    Goblin
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    Quote Originally Posted by Iscah View Post
    It's not just a stylistic order choice; moving the verb to the front turns it into a question.

    In modern English, to turn the statement "you see the woman" into a question, we have to introduce a second verb: we ask "do you see the woman?"

    The other format doesn't need this extra verb, and instead becomes a question by the reordering of the existing words.
    I have to disagree, even though you are technically correct. You must consider punctuation. It's the punctuation that determines whether the sentence being debated is a statement or a question.

    "You see the woman?" would be understood in common conversation to be a question, and to ask it in that manner verbatim would indeed be a stylistic (slang) choice. 'Do' isn't necessary, though it might be grammatically correct, and the 'see' and 'you' don't need to be transposed in order for the sentence to be a question.

    OP is proposing the existence of a grammatical error, but there is none present. Per my earlier example, certainly we don't consider the way Yoda speaks to be a mistake or incorrect. It's a subjective stylistic writing choice; it's impossible for it to be incorrect. Evaluating language "spoken" by a video game character is the same. If a word were misspelled, or the meaning of the sentence changed, then I could see the issue. But, neither of those problems are present here.

    At the end of the day, all of the following mean the same thing, assuming the context of one person speaking to another is the same for each:

    A. "Do you see the woman?"
    B. "See you the woman?"
    C. "You see the woman?"
    D. "See the woman?"

    We've been given a question mark at the end of the sentence, ergo the sentence is a question. Therefore, which you choose as a writer is a stylistic choice. Our FFXIV writer chose B. The placement of 'see' and 'you' is irrelevant in the context of OP's question. Reversing the order of the verb and subject may indeed, technically, change a statement into a question... but that's not the debate here. The debate is whether or not the order of 'you' and 'see', as presented in the game, is an error or bug.

    It is not, it's just a stylistic choice.

    Quote Originally Posted by Iscah View Post
    All the characters use "must needs", not just Urianger.

    "Thine memories" would be wrong, though. In that usage, you pick between thy/thine like we still do between a/an depending on whether the following word starts with a consonant or vowel.
    Yes, absolutely! I said "one of the most famous," specifically because other characters say it.

    As for 'thine,' it may indeed be incorrect, but that's completely beside the point. It was just a random quote to illustrate usage of 'have needs' that, coincidentally, contained a different and unrelated error in the usage of thy/thine. My bad. /shrug
    (1)
    Last edited by Breakbeat; 05-07-2022 at 03:41 PM. Reason: Expand on my point.
    "If you pay attention to the world, it's an amazing place. If you don't, it's whatever you think it is.” – Reggie Watts

  6. 05-07-2022 02:18 PM
    Reason
    Duplicate

  7. #6
    Player
    LuluLavender's Avatar
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    Lulu Lavender
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    Omega
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    Sage Lv 90
    This is antiquated English, not a grammar bug. Certiantly a stylistic choice, given that we are very far in the past at that point in the story.
    (1)