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Had a birthday, and at least it didn't suck? Folks actually remembered this year and everything, so thanks for all the messages. I may suck at responding, but I do appreciate them. [I did get a package, but have not opened it yet because ~issues~]
Late 2012/early 2013 was rough, and I got tired of being ignored or essentially blown off whenever folks deigned to grace me with their presence on chat, so I stopped going on. [angry reminder: one- or two-word responses are not a fucking conversation] If I wanted to talk about the state of the world / kids these days / the weather, I don't need to give up an entire day of my weekend (which is pretty much what chatting with folks in the states entails).
Now that that's off my chest, the real subject of the post (thought up on my way home from work today): Grand Theft Linguistics
Basically, the unholy love child of GTA and the quote that starts "English does not borrow from other languages...." Details are already fading, but I'm pretty sure the boss fights would be major events/discoveries/happenstances to the English language like the various invaders (fight the French phonemes! Now unlocked, using silent letters to boost health!) The final battle would involve the Great Vowel Shift, of course. Leveling up involves getting dictionaries of new languages. Maybe there's a familiar, I dunno, Pidgin the pigeon, and if it's fed loose grammar and extraneous vocabulary it can level up to become a Language of its own! (going from, well, a pigeon to something like a sphinx or winged person or something.) One's allies are dialects, or something. Not entirely sure how to combine linguistics and 3rd person shooter formats, but given a sizable enough research budget I'm sure I could manage. Each mission/level could involve searching for a certain sound shift, or the targets could have t-shirts (or whatever) with relevant words/symbols/phonemes printed.... Only shoot the vikings with words assimilated into English written upon their shields! Ignore the Celts, unless you're mapping Great Britain.
Although, in order to be Grand Theft Linguistics, maybe the player has to sneak in to Norman France / Viking-era Denmark / Chaucer's underwear drawer or whatever and grab the necessary components--prove Verner's law or somesuch.
For an expansion/sequal, maybe go with the evolution of writing, or the rise of the romance languages. Or tackle the modern issues! AAVE! Creole! Rewrite famous passages from literature into textspeak within a time limit! Oooh, Noah Webster versus the conventions of British spelling!
....I need a life
Had a birthday, and at least it didn't suck? Folks actually remembered this year and everything, so thanks for all the messages. I may suck at responding, but I do appreciate them. [I did get a package, but have not opened it yet because ~issues~]
Late 2012/early 2013 was rough, and I got tired of being ignored or essentially blown off whenever folks deigned to grace me with their presence on chat, so I stopped going on. [angry reminder: one- or two-word responses are not a fucking conversation] If I wanted to talk about the state of the world / kids these days / the weather, I don't need to give up an entire day of my weekend (which is pretty much what chatting with folks in the states entails).
Now that that's off my chest, the real subject of the post (thought up on my way home from work today): Grand Theft Linguistics
Basically, the unholy love child of GTA and the quote that starts "English does not borrow from other languages...." Details are already fading, but I'm pretty sure the boss fights would be major events/discoveries/happenstances to the English language like the various invaders (fight the French phonemes! Now unlocked, using silent letters to boost health!) The final battle would involve the Great Vowel Shift, of course. Leveling up involves getting dictionaries of new languages. Maybe there's a familiar, I dunno, Pidgin the pigeon, and if it's fed loose grammar and extraneous vocabulary it can level up to become a Language of its own! (going from, well, a pigeon to something like a sphinx or winged person or something.) One's allies are dialects, or something. Not entirely sure how to combine linguistics and 3rd person shooter formats, but given a sizable enough research budget I'm sure I could manage. Each mission/level could involve searching for a certain sound shift, or the targets could have t-shirts (or whatever) with relevant words/symbols/phonemes printed.... Only shoot the vikings with words assimilated into English written upon their shields! Ignore the Celts, unless you're mapping Great Britain.
Although, in order to be Grand Theft Linguistics, maybe the player has to sneak in to Norman France / Viking-era Denmark / Chaucer's underwear drawer or whatever and grab the necessary components--prove Verner's law or somesuch.
For an expansion/sequal, maybe go with the evolution of writing, or the rise of the romance languages. Or tackle the modern issues! AAVE! Creole! Rewrite famous passages from literature into textspeak within a time limit! Oooh, Noah Webster versus the conventions of British spelling!
....I need a life