Chapter 15 Page 14
May 31st, 2017ZOUNDS! Pieter uses words about two centuries out of date. Since he’s in the 18th century, that puts him in Renaissance times. I’ve noticed this tendency among a lot of people who read a lot, particularly if they read things written long ago. They pick up vocabulary that no one uses any more, which is a shame. For example, Nonce. Nonce is a fantastic word!
Snow’s back! And she’ll be around for quite a bit. Not all of it is for fun times as you can see when you vote for Snow by Night on Top Web Comics.
Hello to everyone we met at Balticon! I hope you’re enjoying the story so far. Thanks so much for joining us. AwesomeCon is on the horizon on June 16-18.
Just be a Dungeon Master for a decade or three of Dungeons & Dragons campaigns; you’ll pick up all kinds of archaic or obscure words! “By troth!” and “Forsooth!” and “Fates forfend!” when astonished, taking measure of a blackguard before greeting him with the hue and cry, tossing caltrops to impede enemies, greeting them in brashes and waylays with anything from dirks to epees to estocs to zweihanders to Lochaber axes to bec-de-corbins, then finishing off the wounded with a misericorde, stowing arms in scabbards, on frogs or on baldrics, garbing oneself in hauberks, pantaloons, tunics, gambesons and other raiment or habiliment, finding cairns and menhirs and barrows in the wilderness, finding anything from humours to philters to unguents to caulics in an alchemist’s shop, then fetching anything from pitchblende to quicksilver to amalgame to brimstone for the local apothecary after buying it from a baseborn chapman, finding anything from aglets to aspergills to mantles to cameos to periapts to torcs to diadems in the hoards of spoils, conferring with soothsayers and diviners to learn of a baronet’s star-crossed demise…the list goes on and on and on. :-)
Zap! comic reference! (I bet it was non intentional but yay!) Also this man is a riot!
Well, I am in a collective with Pascalle, the creator of Zap! (and Wilde Life). But yeah, it was non intentional.
IIRC “Zounds” is short for “God’s wounds” used when emphasis is called for in a non sacrilegious manner. OMG could be something of a modern equivalent though much weaker than “zounds”
Get another bowl, she’ll want some as well.
Is he allowed to say ‘Zounds’ in a PG-rated comic?
In the UK, Nonce is slang for a person with paedophile tendancies and used to be slang for gay men before that.
I am in no way responsible for what regional slang has done to a perfectly good word.
I’ve lived all my life up north, but I try to promote two southern words: “reckon” (instead of “guess” – I’m not just guessing) and “y’all” (a very necessary plural – we are never, ever getting “thou” back). Good words, forsooth!
I blame Guillaume le Bâtard for “y’all”.
And I’m wondering how long before singular “they” becomes so standard that we need a new 3rd person plural.
Nonce is obsolete? What?
Definitely not. Using nonce is still necessary in modern cryptography, to prevent replay attacks.
Kinda curious if Pieter is Toothy Kid’s father. They do share some… character traits.
Snow! Snow, Snow, Snow! Snow is back. :)
Nobody mention ‘aether’.
As someone who reads a lot, especially a lot of older books as a kid, yeah, it’s true. I occasionally find myself using some outdated or archaic word in conversation and then wondering “Where did that come from? I didn’t even remember *knowing* that word!”
[user@host camroo]$ grep -c nonce process_events.pl
14
14 instances of “nonce” in that code. So it’s not completely dead :D
“Manitou first, then ice and syrup!” The man has his priorities straight!