MitD XV: The Other Dark One

[Grey_Wolf_c]

As far as I recall, the bit about split infinitives was from when grammar prescriptivists were trying to make "proper" English as much like Latin as possible, and Latin didn't allow it?

A grammar prescriptivist (Henry Alford, the Dean of Canterbury, in his 1864 book The Queen's English). And Latin only "doesn't allow it" because latin infinitives are a single word (i.e. not "to play" but "ludere"), so you can't possibly put an adverb between the two words, because it has just one. The whole argument is, kindly speaking, nonsense, honestly. Heck, English allows you to split any word with infixes ("it's a-bloody-mazing"), so even if it did have single-word infinitives, you'd probably still be able to split them.

Grey Wolf

[Keltest]

A grammar prescriptivist (Henry Alford, the Dean of Canterbury, in his 1864 book The Queen's English). And Latin only "doesn't allow it" because latin infinitives are a single word (i.e. not "to play" but "ludo"), so you can't possibly put an adverb between the two words, because it has just one. The whole argument is, kindly speaking, nonsense, honestly. Heck, English allows you to split any word with infixes ("it's a-bloody-mazing"), so even if it did have single-word infinitives, you'd probably still be able to split them.

Grey Wolf

I think youre straining the use of "allows" there. People do it, but theyre just wrong and dont care, usually because theyre cursing or otherwise trying to emphasize some unusual state.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I think youre straining the use of "allows" there. People do it, but theyre just wrong and dont care, usually because theyre cursing or otherwise trying to emphasize some unusual state.

No, that's Alford-like thinking. The English language allows for it to be done. It works. Compare it to changing the order of adjectives ("a red big balloon"), which sounds wrong and grates, and leaves you wondering what you mean by "big balloon". Or, for those very same infixes, if you try to place it within a syllable - that definitely English does not allow - or even a more subtle one, English does not allow infixes between any two syllables, only some. So a-bloody-mazing is allowed, amaz-bloody-ing is not.

And to be clear: when I say "allows" I do not mean some Alford guy in an ivory tower somewhere. I mean the actual language, as it exists today. Some things work, some do not, and what does and does not work does change over time. Today, split infinitives work. So do infixes. Neither is "wrong". Such assertion is just contrary to reality.

Grey Wolf

[Fyraltari]

And Latin only "doesn't allow it" because latin infinitives are a single word (i.e. not "to play" but "ludo")

The infinitive of ludo is ludere.

The rest of your post is very right.

[Sir_Norbert]

And to be clear: when I say "allows" I do not mean some Alford guy in an ivory tower somewhere. I mean the actual language, as it exists today. Some things work, some do not, and what does and does not work does change over time. Today, split infinitives work. So do infixes. Neither is "wrong".

And, much as it grates, referring to tmesis as "infixes" is not wrong either :P

[Grey_Wolf_c]

The infinitive of ludo is ludere.

Thank you, as always, for correcting my poor attempts at Latin. I swear I did try to google that before I posted.

And, much as it grates, referring to tmesis as "infixes" is not wrong either :P

I thought infixes where a subset of tmesis? Also, how on earth is that word pronounced? How do you even have "tm" as an opening sound?

GW

[Peelee]

Thank you, as always, for correcting my poor attempts at Latin. I swear I did try to google that before I posted.

GW

-o suffixes mean "I [verb]". - ere suffixes mean "to [verb]".

I think. It's been almost two decades since my last Latin class.

[Fyraltari]

Thank you, as always, for correcting my poor attempts at Latin. I swear I did try to google that before I posted.

You’re welcome.

The weird thing is that people always refer to Latin verbs by using the present indicative first person form rather than by using the infinitive as is done for literally every other language I have a passing knowledge of.
I’m guessing this is because the Romans themselves did so and this is yet another example of people sticking to tradition past the point of usefulness.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

-o suffixes mean "I [verb]". - ere suffixes mean "to [verb]".

I think. It's been almost two decades since my last Latin class.

It's been even longer for me, it was a single year, and I was already learning three other languages at the time (heck, my French teacher was my Latin teacher... some thing never change, really). The stress of it all meant I suffered a mild breakdown and gave up on learning further languages for a while. French was, in fact, a side casualty of it.

Grey Wolf

[Fyraltari]

-o suffixes mean "I [verb]". - ere suffixes mean "to [verb]".

I think. It's been almost two decades since my last Latin class.

Make that « -re » first conjugation Vern go « -are », second «-ere », third « -ere », third mixt* « -ere » and fourth « -ire ».

*a real thing.

[Doug Lampert]

A grammar prescriptivist (Henry Alford, the Dean of Canterbury, in his 1864 book The Queen's English). And Latin only "doesn't allow it" because latin infinitives are a single word (i.e. not "to play" but "ludere"), so you can't possibly put an adverb between the two words, because it has just one. The whole argument is, kindly speaking, nonsense, honestly. Heck, English allows you to split any word with infixes ("it's a-bloody-mazing"), so even if it did have single-word infinitives, you'd probably still be able to split them.

Grey Wolf

Using Latin to give rules for word order is really weird anyway. Most Latin sentences you can mix the words up in any order you like, without changing the meaning; it was traditional to put the verb last, but even that was far from universal.

[Nail]

Durring my continued reread as I got to strip 833 I had an interesting idea. What if the Monster is a Phane?

At first I thought it would be fitting Rich to reveal that the Monster was the darkness the whole time, but reading the Forgotten Realms wiki the description does seem to fit. "Chaotic and destructive, phanes were nonetheless non-evil in nature. Occasionally, phanes formed pacts with powerful mortals who shared their goals. Like most immortals, phanes were most commonly found on the Astral Plane, but they tended to wander the planes as they wished, hunting for prey in the spaces between moments."

Granted this isn't a perfect fit, but I think it's pretty clear the MITD isn't a typical member of it's species

[Schroeswald]

Durring my continued reread as I got to strip 833 I had an interesting idea. What if the Monster is a Phane?

At first I thought it would be fitting Rich to reveal that the Monster was the darkness the whole time, but reading the Forgotten Realms wiki the description does seem to fit. "Chaotic and destructive, phanes were nonetheless non-evil in nature. Occasionally, phanes formed pacts with powerful mortals who shared their goals. Like most immortals, phanes were most commonly found on the Astral Plane, but they tended to wander the planes as they wished, hunting for prey in the spaces between moments."

Granted this isn't a perfect fit, but I think it's pretty clear the MITD isn't a typical member of it's species

The phane doesn't have a strength score, I can't see anything that fits the Escape and I don't think it fits the circus scene (also in 3.5 phanes are Always Chaotic Evil which isn't really a knock but means your description isn't completely accurate).

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Durring my continued reread as I got to strip 833 I had an interesting idea. What if the Monster is a Phane?

It's insubstantial - it literally has no strength score at all. The closest thing it has to a physical attack to use in the hitting lightly game is "Chronal Blast", some kind of temporal flux ranged attack, but that does not sound like it can propel people through walls.

Does have teleport without error for the escape, but the circus is a problem. You'd have to posit that looking into the void of its body causes... what, horrendous vertigo? Too much of a stretch, I feel. Also, a 30-foot radius of null time field permanently around him would have been shown in the comic by now.

Grey Wolf

[Fyraltari]

It's been even longer for me, it was a single year, and I was already learning three other languages at the time (heck, my French teacher was my Latin teacher... some thing never change, really). The stress of it all meant I suffered a mild breakdown and gave up on learning further languages for a while. French was, in fact, a side casualty of it.

Grey Wolf

Oh man, but it's not nearly as insane as Latin! We only have three verb groups (the sane ones, the slightly weird ones and the oh-god-why-is-everything-on-fire ones), no cases and pronouns with rule so intricate no-one understands them anymore!

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Oh man, but it's not nearly as insane as Latin! We only have three verb groups (the sane ones, the slightly weird ones and the oh-god-why-is-everything-on-fire ones), no cases and pronouns with rule so intricate no-one understands them anymore!

Which is why Latin caused it and French was a side casualty, and not the other way around. It wasn't even the verbs - I was also learning Spanish at a time, and your verbs are pretty equivalent to theirs. What I couldn't handle was the vowels, and the perfection when pronouncing them that was required. Spanish's vowels are easy, and heaven knows English doesn't care how you pronounce their vowels. No matter how you do do it, there's an accent somewhere that does it the same. But French? Oh, no you better get those e, é and è right, if you know what's good for you! The DELF 2 oral exam was torturous.

Grey Wolf

[Peelee]

It's been even longer for me, it was a single year, and I was already learning three other languages at the time (heck, my French teacher was my Latin teacher... some thing never change, really). The stress of it all meant I suffered a mild breakdown and gave up on learning further languages for a while. French was, in fact, a side casualty of it.

Grey Wolf

Wait, I'm confused. Are you telling me that French isn't just Latin with a bunch of silent vowels and consonants thrown in with wild abandon?

Also if you no longer hear from me after this day, I name Fyraltari as my murderer.

Durring my continued reread as I got to strip 833 I had an interesting idea. What if the Monster is a Phane?

At first I thought it would be fitting Rich to reveal that the Monster was the darkness the whole time, but reading the Forgotten Realms wiki the description does seem to fit. "Chaotic and destructive, phanes were nonetheless non-evil in nature. Occasionally, phanes formed pacts with powerful mortals who shared their goals. Like most immortals, phanes were most commonly found on the Astral Plane, but they tended to wander the planes as they wished, hunting for prey in the spaces between moments."

Granted this isn't a perfect fit, but I think it's pretty clear the MITD isn't a typical member of it's species

I really wanted this one to be a better fit since I loved it as soon as I clicked on that link.

[Fyraltari]

Wait, I'm confused. Are you telling me that French isn't just Latin with a bunch of silent vowels and consonants thrown in with wild abandon?

Also if you no longer here from me after this day, I name Fyraltari as my murderer.

Spoiler: Huh huh

Show

The joke is that this inscription (roughly "Omar has kill me") (well technically this picture is from a movie) was the primary evidence in a murder case despite the (basic) grammar mistake which many point to to say that it wasn't actually written by the victim.

[Hardcore]

But it can't be wrong in Swedish "too" if it's not wrong in English.

It is a violation of all that is pure and beautiful!

[Grey_Wolf_c]

It is a violation of all that is pure and beautiful!

I believe you meant:

"But it is a violation of all that is pure and beautiful!"



GW

[Peelee]

It is a violation of all that is pure and beautiful!

I would never say that about the Swedish!

[Squire Doodad]

I would never say that about the Swedish!

I have concluded that the Swedish are incapable of doing lasting wrong. The main evidence on behalf of the Swedish are their fish, as well as their candy.

[Lexible]

Alright, I have two theories as to the MitD's identity. Both are somewhat off the rails, in that they do not cleave to a statted 3.5e monster (then again, unless I am mistaken, The Giant never said MitD has a published stat block). I place my quatloos on my first idea here:

MitD is either young Jormungandr, or a direct young offspring of Jormungandr.

Young MitD's self image is of being terrain size (as per Redcloak's "big thick line up the middle" question about MitD's tactical map of the landscape between Azure City and the Hobgoblins' mountain redoubt in comic 415a), whereas fully-grown Jormungandr is large enough to circle the planet.

Jormungandr's literal translation is "huge monster," and when young was extremely hungry and grew rapidly (more on rapidly towards the end); if the shoe fits.

Loki's other two children (with Angrbotha as mother), Hel and Fenrir have both appeared directly and indirectly in the comic already, so Jomungandr would fit reasonably well in the OotS mythos.

Jormungandr across editions of D&D is so large than its movement causes waves and storms, which is in line with a smaller creature that can cause local seismic activity by stomping its foot.

Jormungandr of myth is often represented as a lindworm, which could explain both weird footprints, and (given than lindworms are sometimes represented as able to fly) lack of footprints.

In a Dragon #356 article, Jormungandr grew rapidly after Odin cast him into the sea. I predict that MitD will enter the ocean of the planet within the rift, grow to planet encircling size, and take up a position akin to that of the Midgard Serpent of myth for that world by the end of the OotS.

My second idea, which is not that serious (certainly not serious enough for quatloos!), is that the MitD is a thesaurus... not a therblewurkasaurus, mind you, but a terrible meta-lexical creature (as featured in most fearsomly in Harvard Lampoon's Bored of the Rings).

[Squire Doodad]

Alright, I have two theories as to the MitD's identity. Both are somewhat off the rails, in that they do not cleave to a statted 3.5e monster (then again, unless I am mistaken, The Giant never said MitD has a published stat block). I place my quatloos on my first idea here:

MitD is either young Jormungandr, or a direct young offspring of Jormungandr.

Young MitD's self image is of being terrain size (as per Redcloak's "big thick line up the middle" question about MitD's tactical map of the landscape between Azure City and the Hobgoblins' mountain redoubt in comic 415a), whereas fully-grown Jormungandr is large enough to circle the planet.

Jormungandr's literal translation is "huge monster," and when young was extremely hungry and grew rapidly (more on rapidly towards the end); if the shoe fits.

Someone fact-check me here, but wouldn't Jormungandr and his children get divine ranks? (And therefore be immune to mind control)

Does he have any means of performing teleportation?

Notably, I will accept Jormungandr being able to circumvent the size restraints on the grounds that it is known to have been born small and grew by orders of magnitude as it reached adulthood.

[Lexible]

Someone fact-check me here, but wouldn't Jormungandr and his children get divine ranks? (And therefore be immune to mind control)

Does he have any means of performing teleportation?

Notably, I will accept Jormungandr being able to circumvent the size restraints on the grounds that it is known to have been born small and grew by orders of magnitude as it reached adulthood.

It is not clear that divine rank 0 would gain immunity to mind effects.

As to ESCAPE! (or being a quick study at Go, etc.), I am sure Rich could write in whatever abilities he wanted: I am not making this prediction from a rules standpoint, and Rich does not write exclusively from a rules standpoint.

[Keltest]

It is not clear that divine rank 0 would gain immunity to mind effects.

As to ESCAPE! (or being a quick study at Go, etc.), I am sure Rich could write in whatever abilities he wanted: I am not making this prediction from a rules standpoint, and Rich does not write exclusively from a rules standpoint.

While this is true, I think it far more likely that Rich picked a monster and then wrote the scenes around that instead of writing the scenes and then hunting for a monster that fit all of them, especially given our own difficulties in finding anything that perfectly matches the scenes thus far.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

It is not clear that divine rank 0 would gain immunity to mind effects.

Yes, yes it is.

GW

[Sir_Norbert]

I thought infixes were a subset of tmesis? Also, how on earth is that word pronounced? How do you even have "tm" as an opening sound?

Infixes are a subset of affixes (parts like "-ed" that are not complete words in themselves). They are fairly rare across languages, and English doesn't have them.

"Tm" is perfectly possible to pronounce, and was pronounced just like it looks in Ancient Greek. As for its pronunciation in English, it's too rare to have a standard one. Either drop the t (which matches our treatment of other Greek consonant clusters -- gnome, psychic, etc) or insert a schwa.

[Qwertystop]

Infixes are a subset of affixes (parts like "-ed" that are not complete words in themselves). They are fairly rare across languages, and English doesn't have them.

Yes, English abso-bloody-lutely does have infixes, for one particular category thereof.

[Hardcore]

I believe you meant:

"But it is a violation of all that is pure and beautiful!"



GW

Ouch!
It gives me the idea for MitD XVI: "But it is a violation of all that is pure and beautiful!"