Guild Wars 2

I wouldn’t say I’m really irritated by it. Just more meh about it I guess.

It doesn’t irritate me, but I prefer staves, because it keeps the continuity of Old English ‘stæf, stafas’ – where the ‘f’ in ‘stafas’ is pronounced as a ‘v’ – to Middle English ‘staf, staves’, to Modern English ‘staff, staves’.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Well played, kaat!

And yes, most truly “smote” is best and I’ll try to remember to use the proper term in the future. However, for the most part, if you say “smote” in mixed company you’re going to get some level of polite derision.

Those people are clearly unworthy

Aidan Savage.2078:

Gaile Gray.6029:

Danikat.8537:

Gaile Gray.6029:

PopeUrban.2578:

I just like to say “sticks”

But “I bopped him with a stick” sounds so much less epic than “I smited him with my staff!”

Don’t you mean smote?

I do! But when people give me funny looks for “staves” I don’t want to even think about entering Smote Country.

Well, you could always Dhuum them to a life of misery.

Vayne.8563:

dace.8019:

Vayne.8563:

Sorry, but both are acceptable.

http://www.learnersdictionary.com/definition/staff

I prefer staves myself and on rare occassions when the word pops up in something I’m editing, I recommend changing it to staves, but staffs is not incorrect according to the dictionary. Staves is simply preferred.

As an editor you should know how to interpret a dictionary definition.

The use of “staffs” is applicable only to the first definition but not to the second, which defines the type of staff in question.

I do know, and I’ve researched it before. I just used the first link I found without paying too much attention. Both are considered correct.

Both arent considered correct vayne as far as the BLTC listing. Simple reading would point that out. Both being correct in their own respective contexts does not mean they’re interchangeable.

The FIRST definition applies to “staff” as far as it means the human resource. THAT context means the plural form is only correct when you’re talking about people.
IE:
-Staff is a single group of people
-By extensive, “staffs” is a group of groups

The second definition is the one the game should be using, one that refers to an item. As a result, the correct plural word is staves, not staffs.

For a guy trying hard to correct me, you should read more carefully what I wrote.

I didn’t even read the link carefully having researched this before for other reasons., So I picked the first google thing I came to and I linked it, making the assumption it said what was said in other sites. This isn’t my job. I don’t get paid to check here. I post quickly and if I make a mistake, I’m happy to admit it. Not reading that site was a mistake.

However, in this very thread, other people have backed me up with other sites that have said staffs is acceptable. I don’t really have to research stuff twice, once I learn it. I had to research it after having an argument with an author using it, years ago. I was editing a story for them. I preferred Staves, they wanted Staffs and she was perfectly in her right to use it, as a bit of research determined.

I didn’t even try to read the site I linked.

Skeet.3257:

The plural of staff is staves… Or am i wrong?

You are incorrect. Staffs as the plural for staff, stands. The English language is not a stagnant dead thing. It develops and grows with its peoples and cultures, ever changing, ever adjusting. What is seen as the proper grammar today, would have been slang, or nonsense a century ago, and the slang of today, may very well be proper grammar in centuries to come.

A poster here claimed that ANet’s incorrect use of the word staffs comes off as unprofessional, yet Shakespeare filled his plays with an endless triad of slang and indulgent whims, that -prior to his use- were all but nonsensical; but no one called him unprofessional, or thought any less of his work for its peculiar inclusions, and today, many of his creations or their alterations stand as the foundation of proper English.

The simple fact of the mater is, that a great number of English speakers accept staffs as staff’s plural, and therefore, it is a passable alternative. For the truest and purest form of English does not exist in a dictionary, but in the voices of its people, for it, as all languages, lives, grows, and dies with its people. Attempting to stop this by clinging to the rules of the past is pointless and futile. The world wont stop turning just because you want the sunlight to linger a little longer; English will change, HAS changed. We must look to the future and move forward.

I read all your answers :p and i enjoyed reading every single one of them! good to know ppl share my opinion^^
also i rly loved dem language related answers lol

Gaile Gray.6029:

I’m not budging on “Will everyone please put on his or her jacket?” “Their” just isn’t right.

This isn’t a case where gender neutrality is needed. You really have multiple people, so pluralize “jacket”, and use “their”.

“Will everyone please put on their jackets?”

I agree, though. In those cases where you really don’t know the gender of the person you are talking to our about, using “their” is just wrong.

Lets ask Al.

i cant believe your all complaining about this. can you not enjoy the game? sheesh talk about picky. just to prove you wrong it is acceptable and they do not look less intelligent.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/staff

Another thing that annoys me: Multiple choice.

No, there’s one choice, there are multiple OPTIONS.

The choice lies in the situation that requires a resolution or answer. There is only one choice – the action. There are multiple options within that choice that has to be made!

cadmiumgreen.8712:

Like when I try to type ‘dwarves’ and it auto corrects to ‘dwarfs’.

Actually dwarfs was considered correct until Tolkien decided he didn’t like it, and then kind of established himself as The Guy who gets to decide these things. Also elfs and elfin instead of elves and elvish.

If I remember correctly one of the appendices (appendixes) in The Lord of the Rings explains his reasoning. And then somewhere out in the world is a counter-argument from Terry Pratchett who went back to using dwarfs.

Actually, while elven is now taken to mean made by elves, or of the elves, I think elfin is still used to mean elf-like or even diminutive. —Since elves were once thought to be tiny.

As for his/her vs their…. well, I understand, but you are treading on the feelings of gender-fluid folk.

I have always assumed that GW2 is written by people for whom English is a second language. How else can you explain “account bound on acquire” instead of “account bound upon acquisition”?

Artanis.4963:

Gaile Gray.6029:

I’m not budging on “Will everyone please put on his or her jacket?” “Their” just isn’t right.

This isn’t a case where gender neutrality is needed. You really have multiple people, so pluralize “jacket”, and use “their”.

“Will everyone please put on their jackets?”

I agree, though. In those cases where you really don’t know the gender of the person you are talking to our about, using “their” is just wrong.

Artanis.4963:

Gaile Gray.6029:

I’m not budging on “Will everyone please put on his or her jacket?” “Their” just isn’t right.

This isn’t a case where gender neutrality is needed. You really have multiple people, so pluralize “jacket”, and use “their”.

“Will everyone please put on their jackets?”

I agree, though. In those cases where you really don’t know the gender of the person you are talking to our about, using “their” is just wrong.

I disagree. English needed a third person singular neuter possessive pronoun. Several were tried and most discarded by the populace at large. “Their” was adopted. That’s the way languages work.

Skeet.3257:

The plural of staff is staves… Or am i wrong?

May i just ask, how do you have so much gold? And do you plan on sending me some?

I showed this thread to a couple of my high school English teachers.

One cringed.

The other outright cried.

I think there was the same problem with foci. TP category was called “Focuses” till someone few years ago renamed it to “Foci”.

Beast McDragon.1703:

Artanis.4963:

Gaile Gray.6029:

I’m not budging on “Will everyone please put on his or her jacket?” “Their” just isn’t right.

This isn’t a case where gender neutrality is needed. You really have multiple people, so pluralize “jacket”, and use “their”.

“Will everyone please put on their jackets?”

I agree, though. In those cases where you really don’t know the gender of the person you are talking to our about, using “their” is just wrong.

I disagree. English needed a third person singular neuter possessive pronoun. Several were tried and most discarded by the populace at large. “Their” was adopted. That’s the way languages work.

It’s an example of a language folding in on itself, honestly. English still needs a third person singular neuter possessive pronoun. Because “Their” is plural, regardless of how people commonly use it.

Yes, “in context,” one can establish which singular/plural version of “their” is being used, but for who use is at a singular possessive, their wrong.

Rauderi.8706:

Beast McDragon.1703:

Artanis.4963:

Gaile Gray.6029:

I’m not budging on “Will everyone please put on his or her jacket?” “Their” just isn’t right.

This isn’t a case where gender neutrality is needed. You really have multiple people, so pluralize “jacket”, and use “their”.

“Will everyone please put on their jackets?”

I agree, though. In those cases where you really don’t know the gender of the person you are talking to our about, using “their” is just wrong.

I disagree. English needed a third person singular neuter possessive pronoun. Several were tried and most discarded by the populace at large. “Their” was adopted. That’s the way languages work.

It’s an example of a language folding in on itself, honestly. English still needs a third person singular neuter possessive pronoun. Because “Their” is plural, regardless of how people commonly use it.

Yes, “in context,” one can establish which singular/plural version of “their” is being used, but for who use is at a singular possessive, their wrong.

Icwutudiddere. Thing is, we already have such a pronoun. “Its.” That said, the word has negative connotations when referencing people due to the way it has been used in a derogatory manner in the past. Sentence structure can also be reworked to allow for the use of “one’s” in a grammatically-correct fashion. The use of ‘their’ is strictly incorrect and is justified through means only not to offend people disassociating with a particular gender, which socially, is a relatively new idea.

I think it’s more or less the result of an obsession with being politically correct rather than following the proper constructs of the language.

Formally speaking, using ‘His or her’ isn’t perfect English. It’s a common and accepted one, but from strictly formal perspective, the use of only “his” as generalization when gender is unknown is proper.

Artanis.4963:

In those cases where you really don’t know the gender of the person you are talking to our about, using “their” is just language evolving.

Fixed it for you.

I’ve always considered both “staffs” and “staves” to be correct, but “staves” to be more proper and “staffs” more understandable.

I assumed that A-net chose “staffs” on the TP to reduce confusion, but then “foci”(as opposed to “focuses”) is there aswell as an irregular plural, which kind of destroys this theory.

I pin it down to dialectual differences/a difference in word choice governed by region.

Svarty.8019:

Artanis.4963:

In those cases where you really don’t know the gender of the person you are talking to our about, using “their” is just language evolving.

Fixed it Made it wrong for you.

Abusing “their” that way is literally the worst thing you can do. (Actually, adding a definition to “literally” that means “figuratively” as well as “literally” is likely the literally worst thing you can do.)

More to point, just because something is popularly accepted, doesn’t make that acceptance correct. (For example, Twilight.)

Kidding aside, English also has a ton of arcane rules that are easy to violate. So, “their” as a neutral singular possessive follows in the same lazy, comfortable mechanisms as pronouncing “nu-clee-ar”. I tend to find that use of “their” as a shrug-worthy way to avoid having to use more clumsy sounding, but correct, pronouns. It tweaks me a bit, but it’s not exactly worthy of scorn, either.

Maybe we could get a dev response to a thread or two in the WvW section instead of this very important topic?

Argos Helios.4965:

Maybe we could get a dev response to a thread or two in the WvW section instead of this very important topic?

Technically Gaile isn’t a developer.

Gaile Gray.6029:

PopeUrban.2578:

I just like to say “sticks”

But “I bopped him with a stick” sounds so much less epic than “I smited him with my staff!”

What about pointed sticks?

I have zero concern about this. In fact, I think they made the right call having it “Staffs”. What irritates the bleep out of me is the pronunciation of Wyvern. Who the bleep screwed that up??

DeWolfe.2174:

I have zero concern about this. In fact, I think they made the right call having it “Staffs”. What irritates the bleep out of me is the pronunciation of Wyvern. Who the bleep screwed that up??

I never listened to the npcs in-game saying it. How do they pronounce it?

RoseofGilead.8907:

DeWolfe.2174:

I have zero concern about this. In fact, I think they made the right call having it “Staffs”. What irritates the bleep out of me is the pronunciation of Wyvern. Who the bleep screwed that up??

I never listened to the npcs in-game saying it. How do they pronounce it?

Neither have I, but Google says it’s /?w?v?rn/ (whyvern). What are they saying in-game, DeWolfe?

RoseofGilead.8907:

DeWolfe.2174:

I have zero concern about this. In fact, I think they made the right call having it “Staffs”. What irritates the bleep out of me is the pronunciation of Wyvern. Who the bleep screwed that up??

I never listened to the npcs in-game saying it. How do they pronounce it?

Pretty sure they say “Whiv-urn” instead of “Why-vern”.

Almost like someone with a speech impediment (like Barry Kripke on Big Bang) saying “river”…with an ‘n’ on the end (wivver-n).

StinVec.3621:

RoseofGilead.8907:

DeWolfe.2174:

I have zero concern about this. In fact, I think they made the right call having it “Staffs”. What irritates the bleep out of me is the pronunciation of Wyvern. Who the bleep screwed that up??

I never listened to the npcs in-game saying it. How do they pronounce it?

Pretty sure they say “Whiv-urn” instead of “Why-vern”.

Almost like someone with a speech impediment (like Barry Kripke on Big Bang) saying “river”…with an ‘n’ on the end (wivver-n).

Exactly this, they pronounce it wiv-vern. I’ve never heard anyone pronounce it that way in my entire life. It’s always been Why-vern. Heck, you can click the lil speaker icon on any dictionary website and it’s Why-vern. Google “Wyvern pronunciation” and the top ones all say “why-vern”.

Right when they announced HoT and Colin said “wiv-vern”, players corrected him on here and Reddit. They had plenty of time to fix it even. Just boils my blood it does.

:)

DeWolfe.2174:

StinVec.3621:

RoseofGilead.8907:

DeWolfe.2174:

I have zero concern about this. In fact, I think they made the right call having it “Staffs”. What irritates the bleep out of me is the pronunciation of Wyvern. Who the bleep screwed that up??

I never listened to the npcs in-game saying it. How do they pronounce it?

Pretty sure they say “Whiv-urn” instead of “Why-vern”.

Almost like someone with a speech impediment (like Barry Kripke on Big Bang) saying “river”…with an ‘n’ on the end (wivver-n).

Exactly this, they pronounce it wiv-vern. I’ve never heard anyone pronounce it that way in my entire life. It’s always been Why-vern. Heck, you can click the lil speaker icon on any dictionary website and it’s Why-vern. Google “Wyvern pronunciation” and the top ones all say “why-vern”.

Right when they announced HoT and Colin said “wiv-vern”, players corrected him on here and Reddit. They had plenty of time to fix it even. Just boils my blood it does.

:)

It’s exactly the other way around. They write staves incorrectly but pronounce wyvern correctly. There.

kolompi.1287:

DeWolfe.2174:

StinVec.3621:

RoseofGilead.8907:

DeWolfe.2174:

I have zero concern about this. In fact, I think they made the right call having it “Staffs”. What irritates the bleep out of me is the pronunciation of Wyvern. Who the bleep screwed that up??

I never listened to the npcs in-game saying it. How do they pronounce it?

Pretty sure they say “Whiv-urn” instead of “Why-vern”.

Almost like someone with a speech impediment (like Barry Kripke on Big Bang) saying “river”…with an ‘n’ on the end (wivver-n).

Exactly this, they pronounce it wiv-vern. I’ve never heard anyone pronounce it that way in my entire life. It’s always been Why-vern. Heck, you can click the lil speaker icon on any dictionary website and it’s Why-vern. Google “Wyvern pronunciation” and the top ones all say “why-vern”.

Right when they announced HoT and Colin said “wiv-vern”, players corrected him on here and Reddit. They had plenty of time to fix it even. Just boils my blood it does.

:)

pronounce wyvern correctly. There.

Wut??? So did you Google it at all or just White Knighting it?

I’ve been saying wiv-ern ever since the 80s and I’ve never heard it said any other way until just a few months ago. Does it matter how a mythological beast name is pronounced?

Gaile Gray.6029:

I’m not budging on “Will everyone please put on his or her jacket?” “Their” just isn’t right.

Not everyone is a “him” or “her” though.

I think last time I brought up the “staffs” issue I was told by someone that “staffs” just how the designers liked it. When it comes to a fantasy game with fantasy objects I think everyone has to just bow to the word aesthetics of the designers.

After all we don’t go around arguing about aether vs ether vs æther.

Mo Mo.1947:

After all we don’t go around arguing about aether vs ether vs æther.

5…4…3…2…1…

I’m more irritated by the amount of gold you have..

3500g is a number I can never reach/hit.

StinVec.3621:

RoseofGilead.8907:

DeWolfe.2174:

I have zero concern about this. In fact, I think they made the right call having it “Staffs”. What irritates the bleep out of me is the pronunciation of Wyvern. Who the bleep screwed that up??

I never listened to the npcs in-game saying it. How do they pronounce it?

Pretty sure they say “Whiv-urn” instead of “Why-vern”.

Almost like someone with a speech impediment (like Barry Kripke on Big Bang) saying “river”…with an ‘n’ on the end (wivver-n).

Relevant tangent: GEOR-mag.

Staffs doesn’t bother me because it’s technically correct. Or, at least, it isn’t incorrect. The pronunciation of golem is what bothers me most. It’s supposed to be “goh-lem”, not “gall-um” like the creature in LotR (whose name is spelled Gollum and isn’t related to the concept of golems). The pronunciation “gall-um” is strictly incorrect. There’s no argument to be made for it.

Dragon Age did this too, so I’m wondering if it’s some weird fad that came out of movies’ popularity, rooted in widespread ignorance about the lack of connection between Gollum in the story and golems in Jewish folklore.

Rauderi.8706:

Svarty.8019:

Artanis.4963:

In those cases where you really don’t know the gender of the person you are talking to our about, using “their” is just language evolving.

Fixed it Made it wrong for you.

Abusing “their” that way is literally the worst thing you can do.

I stopped reading here because you’re literally wrong.

I’m glad I’m not the only one who is bothered by the pronunciation of golem and wyvern.

Although I did wonder if it was just how it’s said with different accents. Like herbs vs. ’erbs, tomayto vs. tomahto, lorry vs. semi-truck etc.

But then NPCs also pronounce quay as kway (instead of key) and I’m pretty sure that’s wrong no matter where you’re from.

Reading through this thread, I’m reminding of a rant from a friend of mine. She is a languages professor at the University of Toronto.

Apparently, nearly half of our population arrives at University in a condition that she considers functionally illiterate. That is, they are unable to properly use grammar and punctuation to convey a complex thought.

This problem is worse in the United States, since they are the place where the common usage idea came from. Despite the common usage fallacy, using the English language improperly is still wrong, no matter how widespread the problem is.

It is not simply a matter of dialect or “evolving” rules of language. It is the perpetuation of linguistic laziness that results in discussions like this.

Also, for what it’s worth, upon checking with Paula, it is indeed “staves”, not “staffs”, unless you’re talking about groups of support personnel.

I learned when tutoring an exchange student from Saudi Arabia that Arabic isn’t anyone’s primary language, it’s more a common second language used in a wide area to communicate with people who don’t speak your primary language. From what I was told, Arabic is more preserved and unchanging as a language because it is used for religious purposes on top of used as a common tongue among various regional languages.

Any primary language will change over time. Languages are living. Look at Middle English. Such a different language from today’s English! And you can even see conventions in preposition usage change over the time period of the early 20th century to the present. Even an ocean’s separation has changed American, Australian, New Zealand, South African, etc. English from English spoken and written in the UK! And don’t go thinking people in the UK speak English in the same way as back when British people first started colonizing various parts of the globe.

The only way for English elitists to preserve their precious rules and grammar would be to make it a second language that’s only used for more formal scenarios . Then it would be more preserved and it could be taught in a rigid way without changing so much over time. Look at Latin. It’s a dead language that stopped “living”, a.k.a. changing over time, when the last native speaker died.

The only way to keep English the same is to stop using it.

stale.9785:

Reading through this thread, I’m reminding of a rant from a friend of mine. She is a languages professor at the University of Toronto.

Languages are linguistics? Because any linguistics professor I’ve ever taken a class from doesn’t pretend that English or any language has any hard-set unchangeable rules. They would be more prone to say no one speaks the same language then say everyone is “illiterate” in English usage.

I’m curious about how your friend and other experts would define what is the ‘right’ use of English however.

Because English has never been a static language, it’s been changing gradually over time as long as it’s existed, with new words coming into use and meanings changing, sometimes gradually and sometimes because someone took it on themselves to make a change (Shakespeare did this a lot).

I understand that some things can quite clearly be said to be incorrect, for example saying “for all intensive purposes” instead of “for all intents and purposes” which (if it means anything) means the opposite of the correct phrase. But in general, how can you point to any particular point in time or place, or combination of those and say that the English used there and then is exactly right and how it should always be?

ANet please fix this asap!
I can’t buy weapons from the trading post until this issue is resolved!

Mo Mo.1947:

Languages are linguistics? Because any linguistics professor I’ve ever taken a class from doesn’t pretend that English or any language has any hard-set unchangeable rules. They would be more prone to say no one speaks the same language then say everyone is “illiterate” in English usage.

The fact that the rules get ignored doesn’t change that there are, indeed, rules.

Proper grammatical usage of the English language hasn’t changed much since the mid 1800’s. The only difference is that we tolerate, even encourage usage that is outright wrong.

The gradual kittenisation of the English language is something that may be inevitable, but that doesn’t mean it’s something we need to actively encourage.

The past three hundred years of English literature follow what is, broadly, the same grammatical and structural rules. It’s only within the last century or so that the language has become, for lack of a better term, sloppy.

Misspellings, dangling participles, improper usage (seen in place of saw, for instance) or flat out non-existent worlds (“irregardless” and “ain’t” leap to mind) are wrong.

People who play video games are video game enthusiasts, rather than gamers.

There are a number of athletes who would be amazed to discover that “sporting” has generally meant copulation, rather than the act of displaying sportsmanship.

The goal of the rules is precision, to limit misunderstanding. That people are commonly too lazy to follow the rules, and permit themselves to be sloppy with their speech and writing habits, speaks far more to the cultural attitude towards the effort of personal presentation than it does towards the linguistic medium itself.

Thankfully we behave with more rigour when it comes to mathematics and sciences than we do with languages.

Beast McDragon.1703:

I have always assumed that GW2 is written by people for whom English is a second language. How else can you explain “account bound on acquire” instead of “account bound upon acquisition”?

With that one I imagine it might be due to them wanting to minimize the number of characters on the tooltip, since “…upon acquisition” might require another line.

Also,

stale.9785:

Thankfully we behave with more rigour when it comes to mathematics and sciences than we do with languages.

Language is an art though, not a science. It’s an abstraction of thought where two or more unlinked minds attempt to convey ideas between each other using an indirect medium. And it operates under the variably dubious assumption that our minds are similar in the way they associate multiple ideas and attribute values to those ideas.

Of course, attempts at language preservation are vital for the sake of trying to preserve and perpetuate knowledge, but ultimately it’s like trying to prevent a sand dune from migrating across the desert.

The two opinions of language usage and rules never seem to agree though. :P It seems inevitable.

But as far as staffs goes, I’d prefer staves but won’t hold it against the game designers for choosing staffs. And the “proper” pluralization seems pretty up in the air based on the discussions of this post and outside sources.

stale.9785:

Mo Mo.1947:

Languages are linguistics? Because any linguistics professor I’ve ever taken a class from doesn’t pretend that English or any language has any hard-set unchangeable rules. They would be more prone to say no one speaks the same language then say everyone is “illiterate” in English usage.

The fact that the rules get ignored doesn’t change that there are, indeed, rules.

Proper grammatical usage of the English language hasn’t changed much since the mid 1800’s. The only difference is that we tolerate, even encourage usage that is outright wrong.

The gradual kittenisation of the English language is something that may be inevitable, but that doesn’t mean it’s something we need to actively encourage.

The past three hundred years of English literature follow what is, broadly, the same grammatical and structural rules. It’s only within the last century or so that the language has become, for lack of a better term, sloppy.

Misspellings, dangling participles, improper usage (seen in place of saw, for instance) or flat out non-existent worlds (“irregardless” and “ain’t” leap to mind) are wrong.

People who play video games are video game enthusiasts, rather than gamers.

There are a number of athletes who would be amazed to discover that “sporting” has generally meant copulation, rather than the act of displaying sportsmanship.

The goal of the rules is precision, to limit misunderstanding. That people are commonly too lazy to follow the rules, and permit themselves to be sloppy with their speech and writing habits, speaks far more to the cultural attitude towards the effort of personal presentation than it does towards the linguistic medium itself.

Thankfully we behave with more rigour when it comes to mathematics and sciences than we do with languages.

Actually the sloppiness has been there all along.

In general scientific principles and rules, as well as those relating to mathematics, are discovered not created. The rules related to language are essentially created as a matter of opinion by a select few to impose their preferred sloppiness on everyone else.

So, the usage of the plural for the word staff (when applied to long pieces of wood/metal) is evolving. Some dictionaries allow staffs, some don’t, so apparently the evolution is still ongoing. Meh. This has created an open wound on my psyche, that is now susceptible to a staph infection. >.>