Other > Suggestions
Primitive -> Rudimentary/Improvised
Eternauta:
--- Quote from: Slaver Snipe on February 25, 2013, 05:22:46 pm ---But just because you REALLY REALLY want this changed how about going with makeshift.
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Makeshift is actually a good choice to replace primitive, yeah.
--- Quote ---P.S. Calling another culture rudimentary implies inferiority
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Probably, but I think the word rudimentary is mostly used to describe specific objects, techniques, etc., but not cultures, and in that sense it's different than primitive, and that it's why I see it as a better choice for the use we see in this game. I am surprised though it has been said more than once in this thread that rudimentary is kinda discriminating too, maybe there's a different between Spanish and English with these words.
--- Quote from: Aoife on February 25, 2013, 11:13:05 pm ---The meaning and connotation of words change over time. It's not the 19th century anymore. Rewind 60-70 years and the word gay meant happy or joyful. In todays world, it means homosexual. Though I will agree that the word primitive in some contexts can be used negatively. However in this particualar instance it is not. It is simply an adjective used to desribe certain qualities of the tool or object. Primitive also does not necessarily imply bad or crappy, but rather it's design or creation is of a less complicated (or in some cases less sophisticated) manner as compared to the version made by modern man. In this way, primitive is appropriate in it's use.
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I'd wish more people here would be willing and/or able to discuss the way you do.
I understand your point, but I think it boils down to what the devs meant when they named the item "primitive": you, I and everyone know devs didn't mean to use the negative meaning of word. However primitive is, as you just said, a word that is sometimes used negatively, and for this reason I think another, more objective (that is, lacking a negative side in its meaning which could be used to discriminate) would fit better for the official name of the game item. I've been thinking the same since 2013 and only decided to bring up the discussion because I saw there is a "primitive workbench" now as well.
All of us agree here that this is a very minor aspect of the game to look at, if you still think I am giving too much importance to it, remember I said in my first post that the use of primitive had caught my attention in 2010 when I started playing. I don't give that much importance to this, I don't think it's "bad" or "wrong" that the damn tool is called primitive, I just think other words would fit better because it's the official game item.
If the game was not written in 3rd person, but was written in 1st person instead (this means, if messages in the textbox came up as "I was hit for...", "I've gone up a level", etc.) then it would be awesome that words like "primitive" or even "crappy", words with value judgments, were used, because they should reflect the protagonist's view on the world (all this without considering the limits it'd impose on your possibilities of designing your own character with his own point of view, but that's another thing). But in the case of Fallout and FOnline, these texts are written in 3rd person so words that are rather "objective" fit better than those who can be related to value judgments.
Anyone who pays attention to quest dialogues in 2238 will notice than in some (not all) of the cases, it's obvious that the writer only cared about putting the "basic meaning" into the text, without working a lot on polishing those words. Before someone, one of those who are not willing to understand or "misunderstand" on purpose, says I am being harsh on the devs who made those quests: that is not the case, I respect the devs' work and I perfectly understand they do all this on their free time, etc., so we don't really have any reason to demand quest dialogues to have the quality of professional novelists' texts. It's just that some people care or just sometimes pay a little bit more attention to words, and this forum gives us the possibility to express what we think. I have done it in a respectful manner.
I won't answer some of the things that have been repeated because I think I've been quite clear already.
Aoife:
Until you brought it up, I had not given much thought to the use of the word primitive in regards to tools or work benches. Probably because I never felt it was a derogatory usage of the word and based on other people's comments neither did they. If I actually felt the word was being used in some derogatory fashion I might agree with you. However the way which it is being used in game, it is simply to describe the attributes of the objects. There is no negative or derogatory connotation at all. An archeologist would use the term primitive to describe such objects so it is therefore perfectly appropriate to use in the 3rd person description of the item. Just because a word can be used in a negative way does not mean it needs to be changed when it is not being used that way. Context must be taken into consideration.
T-888:
I said pretty much the same thing in less and simple words.
--- Quote from: T-888 on February 25, 2013, 03:07:52 pm ---It doesn't hold any negative values since it is not in such context in order to indicate them as negative.
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--- Quote from: Eternauta on February 26, 2013, 03:29:56 am ---I'd wish more people here would be willing and/or able to discuss the way you do.
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Funny coincidence, when I post big walls of text, players have a hard time to follow what I say, now that I am talking in a very blunt language, this one seems to have a hard time of comprehending the very basic ideas I present and push forward for digestion.
Sarakin:
Shouldnt be this in offtopic and named linguistic sessions or similar shit ? Otherwise, it makes a poor "suggestion".
JovankaB:
The appearance of this item will change, then we will think about a new name.
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