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writers over-using phrasing


helterskelter

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Sever, yes. Beat into breaking, loosen, and destroy without destroying the shoulder pad itself, you'd be surprised. Just walk up to a motorcycle with hardcase saddlebags and bang on the top right next to the bike at the right angle, just hard enough, and you'll see what I mean.

It's the symbol of the Emperor's authority, like in medieval England they would say "By the Crown". It probably doesn't relate to the Golden Throne, but the Emperor being Emperor and all is bound to have a normal Throne, or at least be depicted on one in promotional posters and the like.

Its always been my understanding that a throne that just so happens to be golden has always existed. They just strapped the Almighty IV to it after Horus stabbed daddy.

 

As far as cursing, I've always thought the Starfist series did great job translating Marines' rough nature and coarse language into a futuristic setting. But I don't think talking about a god's blue balls or the southern end of a northbound kwangduk would fit into the monastic techno-barbarian warrior setting of the grim dark future. It would make Astartes seem too...human.

 

LG

The Spartacus show gave me a new pet peeve. The use of the verb to decimate. While it is not wrong to use it to say "to reduce drastically in number", it still rubs me the wrong way. Originally it meant to remove every tenth man (by lot as punishment).

Yes brother but if you remove every tenth man from a legion of ten thousand the legion will de drastically less combat effective. Yes decimation was a roman punishment but it also became a by word for 'greatly reduced' because any force that had suffered a decimation was much smaller.

 

Problem is with Spartacus, as much as I love it, whenever I watch it I start talking like it and thus writing like it so all my astartes start saying things like 'sieze venemous tongue or see it hacked from mouth' or 'I have longed to see your head parted from f**king neck!'

 

Trying to find actual insults and ways for Space Marines to swear is difficult though, I think that's why ones like 'Throne' and 'Whoreson' are used so much.

Thanks to ADB "tshiva keln" has become a favourite of mine. Although not uttered by an Astartes, I can use in on my line manager :p

 

To answer an earlier post, my problem wasn't with what a wet leopard (or lion) growl was, just the over use of the phrase. I believe it to be excessively repeated.

Yes brother but if you remove every tenth man from a legion of ten thousand the legion will de drastically less combat effective.

Really? It means that every squad will have 9 instead of 10 marines. If you go by the stories, combat usually removes much more.

Problem is with Spartacus, as much as I love it, whenever I watch it I start talking like it and thus writing like it so all my astartes start saying things like 'sieze venemous tongue or see it hacked from mouth' or 'I have longed to see your head parted from f**king neck!'

Hah, you've got the style down. That style is about as far from my usual speech patterns as yoda speak, so not in danger I am of succumbing to its lure. msn-wink.gif

Once you have your spartacus speak just add a few articles and pronouns and it looks a lot less like a copy form the show:

'Seize (or was it cease) your venomous tongue or see it hacked from your mouth.'

BL writers do know that shift-F7 will bring up the Word thesaurus, right?

 

The biggest problem with swearing in BL books is that the writers have to swear at a level that's not going to enrage parents.  Not much you can do about that, you can either dial it back and have them use things like Throne or By the Emperor, or you can go the BSG/Farscape route and just come up with your own words that slot nicely into the f-bomb and s**t spaces in our current swearing vocabulary.

daveNYC, on 06 Feb 2014 - 12:01, said:

BL writers do know that shift-F7 will bring up the Word thesaurus, right?

 

The biggest problem with swearing in BL books is that the writers have to swear at a level that's not going to enrage parents. Not much you can do about that, you can either dial it back and have them use things like Throne or By the Emperor, or you can go the BSG/Farscape route and just come up with your own words that slot nicely into the f-bomb and s**t spaces in our current swearing vocabulary.

Abnett has at least 2 four letter words, and I'm pretty sure that other authors have similar made up words.

There has been more (real)swearing in BL books lately. I can't really post specific examples of the words used, but they have popped up every now and then the last few years. I remember being surprised the first time I noticed one, I think it was in an ADB book, but I'm not sure.

I don't understand how swearing is worse than graphic eviscerations, but oh well.

Fake swear words are funny to me. Why saying fething is OK and :cussing is not is a bit beyond me. If a child is clever enough to read at the level required by popular fiction, then they're clever enough to understand what's really being implied. I'm not sure what's actually being protected about this, and it seems ridiculous to me.

This is kind of related to the topic.

 

Did it bother anyone else that in The Unremembered Empire, single marines were always labeled by their Plural Legion name? (I am probably not describing this properly) As in, "The Ultramarines fired his bolter...". This might be grammatically correct, but it still distracted me from the scene.

 

Was this a conscious decision by the BL editors, like when the use of Astartes for single marines was stopped?

 

And of course, when I'm looking for a specific example, its impossible to find. Hmm. Maybe I'm just losing my mind.

This is kind of related to the topic.

Did it bother anyone else that in The Unremembered Empire, single marines were always labeled by their Plural Legion name? (I am probably not describing this properly) As in, "The Ultramarines fired his bolter...". This might be grammatically correct, but it still distracted me from the scene.

Was this a conscious decision by the BL editors, like when the use of Astartes for single marines was stopped?

And of course, when I'm looking for a specific example, its impossible to find. Hmm. Maybe I'm just losing my mind.

Yes! That pulled me out of the moment every time it occurred. It happens when Curze has his first scuffle with some Dark Angels and I had some difficulty following the action as a result. There are definitely later uses of "Ultramarines" when referring to a single person too.

wallbash.gifWhat happened Dan?!

Good to know that I wasn't imagining that haha.

I guess multiple mistakes like that could go unnoticed in the editing process, but I am wondering if it was done on purpose.

Maybe one of our lovely resident Black Library authors could give us some insight on this whistlingW.gif

Any marine of a decent age is always said to be "tanned by a hundred different suns" or something similar, or is it just me?

Yes, despite the fact that their melonchromic organ can change their skin to adapt to different envrionments meaning they wouldn't tan as a mortal would.

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