I as a Latin student get annoyed with how other people say colossus in different forms. When blizzard released that colossus was plural as colossi I thought this would stop the misuse of the word.
But then i thought of how people said things like "The colossi's lazer beams" which is completely wrong. As Colossus is considered a Latin word i thought I would educate the Starcraft 2 community on how to "Correctly" say colossus....
The following terms are used in this explanation.... Nominative- the noun doing noun e.g. subject Genitive- the Way to show ownership e.g. Joey's Dative- indirect object form Accusative- Direct object form Ablative- used with non action prepositions (all action prepositions used with accusative) vocative- used as command e.g. colossus kill the zerglings
Now for the analysis
colossus is a masculine 2nd declension (way Latin uses to separate nouns) so....
I was thinking about quoting your entire original post, GGOda, and meticulously pointing out (and fixing) all of the grammatical errors and other semantics/ syntax flaws you made, to show you that nobody's perfect...
but then I realized that I didn't want to be a dick.
(Plus, I bet someone else could do it better.)
On a side note, we could also assume that this creature, Blizzard's "Colossus", does not necessarily abide by the rules of Latin (or any particular rules other than what Blizzard dictates). Yeah, it matches a pre-existing word, but it now exists in a new universe (the SC2 one), and so it may be the case that it runs under new linguistic rules and axioms.
I'd already be happy if they managed to stick with correct English consistently, which is to never use "Colossi" in Singular and to use always "Colossi" or "Colossuses" in Plural...
i think it is latin protoss is based off of latin Pro meaning first toss meaning born And praetor meaning leader in latin so colossus is latin this is not a joke thread and toussre thanks for reminding me about the vocative
It would rate pretty high on the silly scale if we used all of the Latin declensions in English. Colossus, Colossi, Colosses should work. And either way, as long as people know what the caster is saying, it's okay.
On April 16 2011 10:15 Mohdoo wrote: I've been trying to get people to realize there isn't an s at the end of "master" in master league. Good luck with this one, rofl.
...That's not how English works. You don't switch to Latin grammar and syntax just because you're using a word that originated in Latin. You take one singular form and one plural form, then treat them like English words. I hope this is a troll thread.
On April 16 2011 10:24 GGOda wrote: no and i wanted to create an account this account is long over do
okay well, since being negative on this website gets you insta-warned. why exactly do you care so much about the way people pronounce a word? because you studied the "correct" way? great, go practice saying colloso to yourself in the mirror.
As a fellow student of the Latin language, I hope you can actually take a step back and find some joy in how ridiculous and enjoyable it is to say "Coloxen," while nonetheless getting the concept of more-than-one-colossus across to the listener.
On April 16 2011 10:25 solistus wrote: ...That's not how English works. You don't switch to Latin grammar and syntax just because you're using a word that originated in Latin. You take one singular form and one plural form, then treat them like English words. I hope this is a troll thread.
seriously has to be, he got me if he is, that's for sure. unreal.
On April 16 2011 10:15 Mohdoo wrote: I've been trying to get people to realize there isn't an s at the end of "master" in master league. Good luck with this one, rofl.
This kinda bugs me, too. Lots of people call it masters league, but don't call the other leagues diamonds, platinums, golds, silvers, or bronzes league.
A words origin does not determine how it's declinated (or w/e you call it in english). Never seen some english speaking use "bratwürste" (german plural of bratwurst). Sometimes, depending on how the usage of the word evolved in the past, plural forms translate over 1:1, but generally speaking the grammar of the language the word is used in (in this case english) applies (anything else would be stupid if you think about it).
That being said, Colossus is a greek word anyways (well, "Kolossos" is the greek word)
the problem here is that you are attempting to mix languages. English is not Latin based, and while "colossus" may be, that doesn't mean we change our grammar rules for plurality. There are plenty of noun words borrowed from other languages in English, but we still pluralize them in an English manner. for example, 'mammoth' is based on the Russian 'mamont' which plural would be 'mamonti.' but in English we do not say 'Mammothi' because that is not how the language works. except for irregulars, like moose and colossus, we put an 's' or 'es' at the end
It's funny that you are applying latin principles to a video game staged in a world far different from our own.
I don't see many people caring or using your "latin" correct terms for Colossi - in short, people aren't worried about syntax when debating video games. Particularly when the post pointing out this has so many grammatical errors that it seems so ironic.
This thread feels like it broke my sarcasm detector. I have zero clue who is serious, who is angry, who is pretending to be angry,who is trolling and who is truly appreciative.
I think this is a hilarious thread because (not to be racist) a latino has to tell english speakers how to say colossus. It doesn't really matter how you say it as long as you get the point across that its that big walking protoss unit. I personally find it entertaining to hear what other people call it when they cast. If it really bothers you how its correctly said tell someone who cares like your english teacher because most people aren't that uptight.
P.S. Thanks for taking the time to post this though, it was quite informative. I just don't see why it really matters or that people are going to say it properly.
On April 16 2011 11:20 KevinIX wrote: This has probably been said already, but Colossus is an english word. So the plural isn't Colossee, instead, it can simply be pronounced Coloxen.
What? Coloxen?
Blizzard refers to the plural as Colossi.
We also know that octopus becomes octopi, and that we don't have rhinoceroxen or rhomboxen or cactoxen either.
I personally use the Original greek route, and refer to them as Colossopods. Seriously, this thread is totes dumb, from a players point of view, I don't need to say the unit name every time I build one, and from a casters point of view, I don't think anyone is confused when the term colossi is used in all circumstances but singular.
Plus Coloxon is a great word.
-edit
On April 16 2011 11:32 SARgeant47 wrote: I think this is a hilarious thread because (not to be racist) a latino has to tell english speakers how to say colossus.
Quoted for hilarious misunderstanding of what being Latin this context means.
I just say colossus for the plural version. It sounds fine to me. I have 5 colossus. That sounds so much better than any other way I have ever heard or seen anyone else use.
I dunno, I always thought that all the unit names were proper nouns; "Colossus" is the name of the unit, not a literal description of the unit - therefore why does it not follow the pluralization rules for proper nouns - i.e. "Colossuses".
Same as why we have the Maple Leafs, and not the Maple Leaves.... just because they have been named after something, they don't inherit all their grammar rules.
How about instead of making things 5 times more complicated we just let people say it however they want. It's not like you don't know what they're referring to. Although some of those words are kinda cool, I might start using them.
On April 16 2011 10:07 GGOda wrote: I as a Latin student get annoyed with how other people say colossus in different forms. When blizzard released that colossus was plural as colossi I thought this would stop the misuse of the word.
But then i thought of how people said things like "The colossi's lazer beams" which is completely wrong. As Colossus is considered a Latin word i thought I would educate the Starcraft 2 community on how to "Correctly" say colossus....
The following terms are used in this explanation.... Nominative- the noun doing noun ie. subject Genitive- the Way to show ownership ie. Joey's Dative- indirect object form Accusative- Direct object form Ablative- used with non action prepositions (all action prepositions used with accusative) vocative- used as command ie colossus kill the zerglings
Now for the analysis
colossus is a masculine 2nd declension (way Latin uses to separate nouns) so....
I find this highly comical simply due to the fact that no one really cares exactly how its pronounced in latin .. when casters say collosi we pretty much understand what they mean.. and otherwise I could care less if we are butchering an old fairly dead language. Idk is this like an epic troll or are you for real? I CAN'T TELL
The word is derived from the Ancient Greek word (most likely Minoan), and we get it through Latin "κολοσσος"
The conjugation in Ancient Greek would be: nom. sing. κολοσσός gen. sing. κολοσσοῦ dat. sing. κολοσσῷ acc. sing. κολοσσόν voc. sing. κολοσσέ nom. pl. κολοσσοί gen. pl. κολοσσῶν dat. pl. κολοσσοῖς acc. pl. κολοσσοῦς voc. pl. κολοσσοί
*These are the Attic Greek forms, there may be slight changes in Doric and other forms.
So It would be more like colossoi if we were being purists, but we shouldn't be. As words travel from language to language, they change. So it is irrelevant what it is in Latin, because we are speaking English, and the correct form in English is accepted as Colossus in the singular and Colossi in the plural.
I've been a student of Ancient Greek (mega-nerd) for two years, and I thought this might show you that you shouldn't get annoyed at people who don't call a colossus a collosorum for a possessive, because words change through time.
So I love your research and believe that in Latin that are correct, but even so this is not Latin. This is ultra-modern English with Latin roots. According to the American Heritage Dictionary it is Colossi, rhyming with "lie" or "pie", which is the way that Blizzard or whomever has chosen for it. Now Oxford English rhyming dictionary is showing both rhymes, Coloss(ee) and Coloss(i) as both correct.
Overall, I will stick with Colossi as in pie, but thanks for the information!
I think Darclite just won this thread. I know nothing about ancient languages, but I'm pretty sure no one really wants to argue with Colos-"I" as the English pronunciation of the plural for Colossus.
doenst really matter - only important thing is: "Colossorum" is an awesome word
i would have to agree with this! haha just seeing it makes me want to use it :p hehe but really, thanks for this info! there must be a few language buffs out there who really wanted to know
On April 16 2011 10:45 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: I think I know why.
Because you're used to things like:
Octopi, not octopusorum
Perhaps these are from different roots, but they're more common than Colossus.
I'm sure the OP is technically correct with his Latin.
I'm equally certain that people aren't going to be able to memorize all of those rules, because we're used to English, not Latin
Uh nice, perfect point to post this video (about octopi):
I think some nice similiarities can be drawn to colossus.
But the most important part starts at ~1:19: "One thing, whenever a word from a foreign language enters the English language it becomes an English word and gets inflected like any other English words."
On April 16 2011 11:47 Darclite wrote: The word is derived from the Ancient Greek word (most likely Minoan), and we get it through Latin "κολοσσος"
The conjugation in Ancient Greek would be: nom. sing. κολοσσός gen. sing. κολοσσοῦ dat. sing. κολοσσῷ acc. sing. κολοσσόν voc. sing. κολοσσέ nom. pl. κολοσσοί gen. pl. κολοσσῶν dat. pl. κολοσσοῖς acc. pl. κολοσσοῦς voc. pl. κολοσσοί
*These are the Attic Greek forms, there may be slight changes in Doric and other forms.
I've been a student of Ancient Greek (mega-nerd) for two years
I've been a student of Alcohol for more than two years, and every single one of your conjugations look like "Kahlua".
Maybe that's why dragoons walk funny... they've been drinking the blood of the colossi...
On April 16 2011 10:09 Backpack wrote: If people had trouble with colossi/colossuses, how do you expect them to remember 7 more ways of saying it?
In Polish every word have 7+ forms.
Funny that americans can't remember 7 forms of one word.
And yet you couldn't remember the form 'has'
Win. Isn't it funny that us Americans don't really do anything wrong that other people don't, and yet we get hated on all the time?
On-topic: Colossus and Colossi or Colossuses. Not Coloxen, that is not a word, and breaks every rule of the english language, along with sounding like a hick. Some troll made that up a while ago and for some reason everyone believes the troll over blizzard and the dictionary.
We should really be cracking down on the casters who say "colossi" for the singular case. There are some notable casters who ALWAYS say "colossi" for singular, but "colossus" for plural. If they're doing it on purpose, FUCK YOU.
On April 16 2011 12:10 Redunzl wrote: I was going to make this thread ages ago but feared it would be lost on the meme generation. Euge bone serve et fidelis!
?
On topic: The octopus video posted by Zocat and the fact that Blizzard already gave its plural for Colossus pretty much ends any controversy
1. Blizzard decides to name them Colossi 2. I hate the word "Colossi" so I would use Colossus for one, and Colossoraptors for two or more, 'cause its cool
But the most important part starts at ~1:19: "One thing, whenever a word from a foreign language enters the English language it becomes an English word and gets inflected like any other English words."
I was just going to say the same thing. The OPs Latin is spot on, but its just that: Latin. You don't go around writing all the correct forms of "data" whenever you write a scientific paper, do you?
oh in Latin nexus is an adjective for bond... thus explaining all the confusion ahh i see i admit defeat with the nexus should have done more research into the word..
Not that I know what the hell that means. Is that like the first generation of Pokemon vs. all the new ones?
Keep arguing though, brb with popcorn.
Actually GGOda is perfectly right. As a noun, nexus belongs only to the fourth declension - just as shown in the wiktionary page you posted (it also notes that it's a masculine noun btw).
On April 16 2011 10:53 MajorityofOne wrote: Plural of colossus: Colossoraptors, obviously
Totally going to have to start saying that, it's hilarious.
Or go with the snoop approach, where the protoss death ball consists of stizzles, sentrizzles, zizzles, colizzles, and sometimes void rizzles...or vizzle rizzles...not really sure :p
Can we move on to how some people say zEElots and not zEHlots and that it's a "nuclear freakin' missile" not a "nuclear freakin' bomb" and how people misuse meta-game to mean just current trends in strategies when it means anything outside of the core game itself?
this whole post doesnt make sense because colossus in this sense is an english word borrowed from latin, so any plural form it might have follows english syntax..
As a Classics enthusiast and advanced Latin student currently plowing through Cicero, I can sympathize with the aim of this thread. But while this is all very nice for a five-second Latin refresher for the TL community...in the English language (which is what we're all speaking now) all Latin loan-words (such as larva, index, and a billion others) function as English words grammatically, not Latin ones, and use only the nominative singular and plural forms.
This is very similar with how, for instance, Greek loan-words are rendered into Latin; they are modified to use Latin endings. And even Hebrew words, which are less easily rendered into Latin, usually become indeclinable rather than using their full Hebrew declinations.
Because the thing is, English has only two cases, which are identical for all words except personal pronouns, unlike Latin, which has six; and it would be very incorrect and indeed grammatically nonsensical to use the Latin forms for cases which don't exist in the English language. Thus, we treat the word as an English one and use only one form, as is appropriate for English words.
This is just the way language in general works; complaining about people not "pronouncing colossus right" (or rather, complaining about people not declining colossus right, which is rather different) is simply nonsensical from a linguistic perspective. Sure, it doesn't hurt people to be aware of the word's origin; but criticizing people for using it in the correct fashion for a Latin loan-word in the English language is linguistically incorrect and rather petty.
TLDR: This thread makes no sense. Latin loan words in English, just like loan-words in general in almost every language under the sun, behave as English words grammar-wise.
OR
Sermo stultus est.
Amo Colossos; amo lata crura Colossorum. Propter potentiam maximam, do gratias Colossis pro Protossis omnibus!
And Wikipedia has become much more accurate and better protected since then.
I always roll my eyes when people immediately dismiss things that are referenced from Wikipedia, which typically has a plethora of sources documented at the bottom of the entry if you're actually skeptical of the claims.
On April 16 2011 12:58 salle wrote: Can we move on to how some people say zEElots and not zEHlots and that it's a "nuclear freakin' missile" not a "nuclear freakin' bomb" and how people misuse meta-game to mean just current trends in strategies when it means anything outside of the core game itself?
Welcome to English, where it is indeed colossi (like eye) and colossi's for possessive.
If you want to debate etymology of every English word, you will never be done. However, since language is organic we may accept that the modern use is the correct use.
I don't like "trolling" in the form of making arguments that can be actual arguments. It results in a bunch of people thinking you're serious and really no reason for them to not think so.
Anyways just so we have the truth in this thread as well:
Colossus is an English word which comes from latin which comes from greek. There are two acceptable ways to pluralize it, colossuses and colossi. Other conjugations follow typical English grammar rules.
On April 16 2011 13:27 Befree wrote: I don't like "trolling" in the form of making arguments that can be actual arguments. It results in a bunch of people thinking you're serious and really no reason for them to not think so.
Anyways just so we have the truth in this thread as well:
Colossus is an English word which comes from latin which comes from greek. There are two acceptable ways to pluralize it, colossuses and colossi. Other conjugations follow typical English grammar rules.
Well, if the OP is not a genuine Latin language champion but a troll, he's been pretty succesful.
Anyways, anyone with half a brain would have jumped to the same conclusion as you pretty fast. So the options left are "the OP is an ancient Rome partisan" and "the OP is a troll", none of which should be taken too seriously.
I just wanted to educate the tl community on this and Cptn that was a mean comment and for those thinking this is a troll it isnt so stop trolling and saying its a troll
On April 16 2011 12:58 salle wrote: Can we move on to how some people say zEElots and not zEHlots and that it's a "nuclear freakin' missile" not a "nuclear freakin' bomb" and how people misuse meta-game to mean just current trends in strategies when it means anything outside of the core game itself?
u hatin on day9 bro?
No, I'm certainly not trying to ridicule someone for in one breath saying one thing and in the next acting in a way opposite to this. That would be quite rude of me and I'm a very kind and mannered guy.
The statement above is entirely correct. The English language has so effeciently annexed words from all over the world into one of the most painfully complicated lexcons of all time. One of these happens to be the word in question, and it's contextual application. Although the writeup to it's etymology, and even it's (potential) humourous intent, are both applaudable, it's applicability to the communication of information between StarCrafters is negligible.
I'm a fan of "CollosS0rZ".... but the one that really pisses me off is when people say Zealot like "ZEEL-aht" instead of "ZEL-uht"... even this aggrees with me when I click the little speaker icon for a proper phonetic pronunciation produced perfectly by a real reference site.
Another painful travesty to vocabulary is the common misspelling, and accompanying mispronunciation, of the word "nuclear" as "NUCUlar". Is it really so difficult for people to associate the profound image of a nuclear explosion with the fact that the reaction begins at the physical order of magnitude of an atoms nucleus? Other than that, if someone is dropping a nuke, or even watching, they have a right to be excited
Can we move on to how some people say zEElots and not zEHlots and that it's a "nuclear freakin' missile" not a "nuclear freakin' bomb" and how people misuse meta-game to mean just current trends in strategies when it means anything outside of the core game itself?
On April 16 2011 10:22 ahx wrote: You created an account to discuss pronunciation of words..
In case you didnt notice ... language is the key for many things in life. Do you think people running around and greeting everyone with "Yo dude, whats up?" will ever get a highly visible job where you need to communicate with / to people? News presenter, five star hotels, ... they all need people with "proper language skill" and not those who communicate in their own sub-form of their language. There is one exception: if the dialect is regional it is acceptable for people working there to speak that way.
Sadly todays youth culture is prone to develop its own set of vocabulary and TV series add a lot of words to boys language which arent really words (BOOM, BANG, ...). My experience here in germany tells me that it is much worse in non-english countries, because the kids arent using their own additional words, but rather start using english words instead. This ends up with people sounding somewhat stupid when they are talking in a mixed german-english vocabulary and if you listen to one of KHALDOR's "german" casts you might notice that every 5th to 10th word is actually english (and I am not talking about Stalker, Zealot, Marine, Zergling). This is rather depressing because he is one of the "teachers" for the german kids who talk about the game and this slowly "dissolves" the german language.
How about we just take the ridiculous war of the worlds unit out of the game and replace it with the Reaver, so we can open up a thread on how to pronounce Reaver like the Korean announcers?
On April 16 2011 10:07 GGOda wrote: I as a Latin student get annoyed with how other people say colossus in different forms. When blizzard released that colossus was plural as colossi I thought this would stop the misuse of the word.
But then i thought of how people said things like "The colossi's lazer beams" which is completely wrong. As Colossus is considered a Latin word i thought I would educate the Starcraft 2 community on how to "Correctly" say colossus....
The following terms are used in this explanation.... Nominative- the noun doing noun e.g. subject Genitive- the Way to show ownership e.g. Joey's Dative- indirect object form Accusative- Direct object form Ablative- used with non action prepositions (all action prepositions used with accusative) vocative- used as command e.g. colossus kill the zerglings
Now for the analysis
colossus is a masculine 2nd declension (way Latin uses to separate nouns) so....
On April 16 2011 10:22 ahx wrote: You created an account to discuss pronunciation of words..
In case you didnt notice ... language is the key for many things in life. Do you think people running around and greeting everyone with "Yo dude, whats up?" will ever get a highly visible job where you need to communicate with / to people? News presenter, five star hotels, ... they all need people with "proper language skill" and not those who communicate in their own sub-form of their language. There is one exception: if the dialect is regional it is acceptable for people working there to speak that way.
Sadly todays youth culture is prone to develop its own set of vocabulary and TV series add a lot of words to boys language which arent really words (BOOM, BANG, ...). My experience here in germany tells me that it is much worse in non-english countries, because the kids arent using their own additional words, but rather start using english words instead. This ends up with people sounding somewhat stupid when they are talking in a mixed german-english vocabulary and if you listen to one of KHALDOR's "german" casts you might notice that every 5th to 10th word is actually english (and I am not talking about Stalker, Zealot, Marine, Zergling). This is rather depressing because he is one of the "teachers" for the german kids who talk about the game and this slowly "dissolves" the german language.
On April 16 2011 10:16 GGOda wrote: i think it is latin protoss is based off of latin Pro meaning first toss meaning born And praetor meaning leader in latin so colossus is latin this is not a joke thread and toussre thanks for reminding me about the vocative
On April 16 2011 10:16 TUski wrote: I'm going to start using the.... umm... "Accusative" form of the word from now on.
Collosums.
I think the more common Accusative form of Colossus is:
"Those big ass Protoss ground units are OP."
That's what I hear from most people, anyway.
HAHAHAHAHA. Really silly thread. I clicked to see if there are some player pronouncing it funny, instead a get an obscure latin grammar lesson. Some people, whew!
As a natural english speaker and the learner of the german language, something you have to keep in mind is that colossus is a loaned word, meaning that its base word is taken, but not necessarily the grammar that comes with it. I find this to be the case for German --> English loaned words. One example is the word "fehlen", which means "to fail". It's pronounced something like "failen". However, in english, we do not say "sie failen, ich faile, er failt, ich failte, etc...", instead, we truncate it to just "they fail, i fail, he fail, i failed, etc". Theres also the case of different cases in German as well, which does not translate at all in english (lazy english speakers don't have to memorize silly cases). In German, the word "nächste" sounds somethign a bit like "nexte". The need for the 'e' at the end indicates what case it is (nominative, accusative, dative, genitive, etc). But yet again, in english, we simply say "next", because that is how our grammar works.
In the english language, we are supposed to say "colossus and colossi", but when doing the genitive case, I am not entirely certain how it would be done. Still, I would imagine that it would follow english grammatical convention. This means that it would be "the colossus' and the colossi's".
Still, you might be right in that the words should correctly follow its cases, but i personally highly doubt it. Just my thoughts.
Hehe, i learned latin, and my language says thing pretty much how we write it down (probably because we adoptad latin characters after a whole functional language developed, not both together, but im not a language professor), so latin is much closer to my habits or pronouncing stuff, so that 'i' is naturally the 'i' of idra to me. And thats how latin (and actuall italian) pronounces it. Dont know if it should transfer to english though, english says many things other than its origin. So it may or may not be the ee sound.
On April 16 2011 13:45 salle wrote: No, I'm certainly not trying to ridicule someone for in one breath saying one thing and in the next acting in a way opposite to this. That would be quite rude of me and I'm a very kind and mannered guy.
The statement above is entirely correct. The English language has so effeciently annexed words from all over the world into one of the most painfully complicated lexcons of all time. One of these happens to be the word in question, and it's contextual application. Although the writeup to it's etymology, and even it's (potential) humourous intent, are both applaudable, it's applicability to the communication of information between StarCrafters is negligible.
I'm a fan of "CollosS0rZ".... but the one that really pisses me off is when people say Zealot like "ZEEL-aht" instead of "ZEL-uht"... even this aggrees with me when I click the little speaker icon for a proper phonetic pronunciation produced perfectly by a real reference site.
Another painful travesty to vocabulary is the common misspelling, and accompanying mispronunciation, of the word "nuclear" as "NUCUlar". Is it really so difficult for people to associate the profound image of a nuclear explosion with the fact that the reaction begins at the physical order of magnitude of an atoms nucleus? Other than that, if someone is dropping a nuke, or even watching, they have a right to be excited
Can we move on to how some people say zEElots and not zEHlots and that it's a "nuclear freakin' missile" not a "nuclear freakin' bomb" and how people misuse meta-game to mean just current trends in strategies when it means anything outside of the core game itself?
The statement above is entirely correct. The English language has so effeciently annexed words from all over the world into one of the most painfully complicated lexcons of all time. One of these happens to be the word in question, and it's contextual application. Although the writeup to it's etymology, and even it's (potential) humourous intent, are both applaudable, it's applicability to the communication of information between StarCrafters is negligible.
I'm a fan of "CollosS0rZ".... but the one that really pisses me off is when people say Zealot like "ZEEL-aht" instead of "ZEL-uht"... even this aggrees with me when I click the little speaker icon for a proper phonetic pronunciation produced perfectly by a real reference site.
Another painful travesty to vocabulary is the common misspelling, and accompanying mispronunciation, of the word "nuclear" as "NUCUlar". Is it really so difficult for people to associate the profound image of a nuclear explosion with the fact that the reaction begins at the physical order of magnitude of an atoms nucleus? Other than that, if someone is dropping a nuke, or even watching, they have a right to be excited
Can we move on to how some people say zEElots and not zEHlots and that it's a "nuclear freakin' missile" not a "nuclear freakin' bomb" and how people misuse meta-game to mean just current trends in strategies when it means anything outside of the core game itself?
actually, he's completely wrong.
Would you mind elaborating?
OT: If we are to apply the latin grammar system to a latin word adopted by english, why not do so for all the Protoss units? phoenix to phoenicis, phoenici, phoenicem, phoenice;. Nexus to nexi, nexo, nexum, nexe, nexa....etc.
Even if the Protoss' units names were partly inspired by Latin (or Blizzard just made use of English roots of words), it's just not feasible to use Latin diction, since 95%+ of people won't be able to correctly apply latin grammatical rules anyway and would just prefer to hear it in English (I'm part of the 95%).
lol this kid probably got a gold on his national latin exam and now he feels hes qualified to teach everyone about latin. true nerd at heart
too bad hes wrong. we speak english, motherfucker. if we were speaking latin, youd be right... but we dont and the last time i checked, every other word we use that has latin roots does not need to be declined based on its use.
next time u try to tell hundreds of thousands of people that theyre wrong, be 100% sure that ur right and dont be so smug.
sorry to be an asshole, but there were always a couple of kids like you when i was in school and EVERYONE hated them. hopefully you understand this and maybe you can make some friends
On April 16 2011 10:22 ahx wrote: You created an account to discuss pronunciation of words..
In case you didnt notice ... language is the key for many things in life. Do you think people running around and greeting everyone with "Yo dude, whats up?" will ever get a highly visible job where you need to communicate with / to people?
Yes.
It's called using different sets of language around different groups of people.
On a side note, we could also assume that this creature, Blizzard's "Colossus", does not necessarily abide by the rules of Latin (or any particular rules other than what Blizzard dictates). Yeah, it matches a pre-existing word, but it now exists in a new universe (the SC2 one), and so it may be the case that it runs under new linguistic rules and axioms.
Whew, so we don't necessarily have to memorize all those? xD
Yes.
It's called using different sets of language around different groups of people.
I think the example he used was meant to imply that the example character knows only that kind of language.
I prefer the Day[9]-ish "imbaimbaimbaimba". It's easy to remember and can be used anywhere. I might start using the Colossorum though, that is just sick.
As much as i usually appreciate things like this, as i love understanding grammar and such, i would like to point out that Latin as a language has been dead for a very long time, and thus we actually do not know how many things are supposed to be pronounced. Hence the common question: Weeny weedy weechy? Veeny veedy veechy? Weeny weedy weeky? etc
That said, it has always been clear to me that Collosus is 1. Collosi is 2 or 3. Colloxin is more than 3.
Seriously though, i think it is nice to know what the gemitive and the accusitive are in latin. Good post.
I've thought about the same seeing has I have had Greek and Latin for multiple years in high school. The thing is when I started to look it up and saw the declensions, while awesome for me to get a quick refresher and dream about how that could be applied to Starcraft and a word like Colossi. It's not realistic, it's not how English works. I'd settle for everyone doing it correct in the english way, with only the singular and the plural. However it would be really cool if some caster started doing this but it wouldn't catch on anyway. That said unfortunately language is dynamic. I'm afraid it can be just as acceptable for someone to say it wrong in the English way as for someone to say it wrong in the Latin way.
Edit: Fun fitting song
Rosa Rosa Rosam Rosae Rosae Rosa Rosae Rosae Rosas Rosarum Rosis Rosis
My brain exploded that people care this much about a word people say. Colossuses is annoying, I'll give you that, but that's as far as I'll go with you.
Colossus - 5 dictionary results co·los·sus /kəˈlɒsəs/ Show Spelled[kuh-los-uhs] Show IPA –noun, plural -los·si /-ˈlɒsaɪ/ show+spelled">Show Spelled[-los-ahy] Show IPA, -los·sus·es. 1. ( initial capital letter ) the legendary bronze statue of Helios at Rhodes. Compare Seven Wonders of the World. 2. any statue of gigantic size. 3. anything colossal, gigantic, or very powerful.
Even though "Colossus" has Latin as it's root, that doesn't mean that it is correct to treat it as a latin word. It has been adopted into English and therefore follows English grammar rules. Words borrowed from French don't follow French grammar rules, for example. If you look it up in a dictionary, it will tell you that Colossi and Colossuses are both correct in the English language (even as I type this, both Colossi and Colossuses are considered as words by spell-check). For example, the genitive case for "colossus" is "colossus's" The genitive case for "colossuses" would be "colossuses's." (note that only certain historical figures traditionally drop the "s" after the apostrophe. I don't particularly like this convention, but I'll stick with it for now). Unless you are casting games in Latin, Latin grammar rules just don't apply.
I bitched and moaned about having to decline nouns in Latin class; I would never expect anyone who doesn't have a grade on the line to bother with this crap zz
lol imo just say colossus for everything xD most people tend to say 1 colossus and 2 or more colossi though i think, the rest mostly doesnt matter when casting etc.
Since colossus is an English word, but has it's origin in Latin, it actually don't follow the latin grammar rules... Because it's an English word! The Oxford Dictionary says that Colossus in plural can be "colossi" as well as "colossuses". There aren't any cases grammar rules in the English language, therefore you can say "the colossi's lazer beams".
I think it's briefly worth pointing out here (as we seem to be going down that route!) that there is some confusion in this thread about the use of the vocative. The vocative case isn't just for commands, nor is it for when "we're talking", it's used to address someone directly. So if you were talking TO your colossus in any context/for any reason, you'd use the vocative case (if you were a Roman, that is). Otherwise, pick another. Or, as we're speaking English, don't bother .
On April 16 2011 18:39 Joh wrote: Since colossus is an English word, but has it's origin in Latin, it actually don't follow the latin grammar rules... Because it's an English word! The Oxford Dictionary says that Colossus in plural can be "colossi" as well as "colossuses". There aren't any cases grammar rules in the English language, therefore you can say "the colossi's lazer beams".
I agree.
You could apply the latin pronunciation to many other English words and they would almost all be different than the way we use English words today.
Grammar of another language than the one we are communicating in doesn't apply. Otherwise you'd have to start using the "correct" grammar for every word originating in a different language. I don't think I have to explain the ridiculousness of this concept.
Just because colossus is derived from Latin, does not mean we must say the word as Latin speakers would. Languages evolve continually, and the same word across varying languages can be pronounced in many different ways. Colossus is no exception.
On April 16 2011 10:22 ahx wrote: You created an account to discuss pronunciation of words..
In case you didnt notice ... language is the key for many things in life. Do you think people running around and greeting everyone with "Yo dude, whats up?" will ever get a highly visible job where you need to communicate with / to people? News presenter, five star hotels, ... they all need people with "proper language skill" and not those who communicate in their own sub-form of their language. There is one exception: if the dialect is regional it is acceptable for people working there to speak that way.
Sadly todays youth culture is prone to develop its own set of vocabulary and TV series add a lot of words to boys language which arent really words (BOOM, BANG, ...). My experience here in germany tells me that it is much worse in non-english countries, because the kids arent using their own additional words, but rather start using english words instead. This ends up with people sounding somewhat stupid when they are talking in a mixed german-english vocabulary and if you listen to one of KHALDOR's "german" casts you might notice that every 5th to 10th word is actually english (and I am not talking about Stalker, Zealot, Marine, Zergling). This is rather depressing because he is one of the "teachers" for the german kids who talk about the game and this slowly "dissolves" the german language.
Languages evolve. Nothing new here.
Thats the typical lazy excuse for not having to try and follow the right way. "Languages evolve" is only valid as an excuse if the changes apply for ALL the people who speak the language. Otherwise this evolution only creates a "secret language" which only the people who are its users - be they "ghetto dudes" or "Starcraft gamers" - speak but which is NOT the language.
I doubt any "niche pronounciation" coming from Starcraft players will actually change the language. It will however set the peopl who "do it the wrong way" (Colluxen ... yeah) apart from those who learned the correct way.
I like Collosoraptors. It'd be funny if Collossi grew distiguishable hind legs and stubby front claws every time they got within high-five distance with one another.
On April 16 2011 19:20 woowoo wrote: Hey, you know the correct spelling will be the one used by an overexcited korean commentator, something like Colossuuuuuuuuuu !
Caster : Colossoruummm laser burned all Idra's zerg units. OMGGGGGG!
We're not speaking Latin. Englsin only has 3 cases. Subjective, Objective, and Possessive.
Colossus Colossus Colossus's
Colossi Colossi Colossi's
On April 16 2011 10:07 GGOda wrote: I as a Latin student get annoyed with how other people say colossus in different forms. When blizzard released that colossus was plural as colossi I thought this would stop the misuse of the word.
But then i thought of how people said things like "The colossi's lazer beams" which is completely wrong. As Colossus is considered a Latin word i thought I would educate the Starcraft 2 community on how to "Correctly" say colossus....
You don't sounds protentious at all...
And how do you know it isn't 4th declension? Fucking colossi are some of the manliest shit in the world of Starcraft.
I find it funny that in the campaign mission where you are tasked with destroying several Protoss Nexus to disable a Mothership, Nexus, Nexi, and Nexuses are all used as the plural form of Nexus.
I just call it Coloss...
No need to add any random declensions. I took 3 years of Latin in high school, and I hated every minute of it. I would rather not be forced to memorize declensions again. Nomative, ablative, blah blah blah. It would've been more useful for me to learn Chinese...
Anyways, for some reason, I always thought that Blizzard naming the Colossus as "Colossus" was because the Dragoon from BW sometimes said "Galahoslos?", which sounds suspiciously similar to "Colossus." What is heard cannot be unheard, so I hear "Colossus" every time I play BW.
On April 16 2011 21:34 buscemi wrote: How to correctly pronounce colossus:
Colossus (singular) (kuh-loss-us) Colossuses (plural) (kuh-loss-us-es) or Colossi (plural) (kuh-loss-eye)
That's it. It's not a Latin word. It's an English word derived from Latin.
This. As soon as a word becomes part of a language it doesn't need to follow its mother language rules anymore. It follows the rules of the language it is being used on. Besides, it's the speakers that create a language not the other way around. If too many people would say collossa as plural, you bet colossa would be the plural no matter the rules.
On April 16 2011 15:44 beastmode548 wrote: lol this kid probably got a gold on his national latin exam and now he feels hes qualified to teach everyone about latin. true nerd at heart
too bad hes wrong. we speak english, motherfucker. if we were speaking latin, youd be right... but we dont and the last time i checked, every other word we use that has latin roots does not need to be declined based on its use.
next time u try to tell hundreds of thousands of people that theyre wrong, be 100% sure that ur right and dont be so smug.
sorry to be an asshole, but there were always a couple of kids like you when i was in school and EVERYONE hated them. hopefully you understand this and maybe you can make some friends
Don't know if someone already mentioned it, but the Colossi's (sic) name is derived from the proper name "Colossus of Rhodes" which was a huge statue for the Greek god Helios. Therefore i think it's not a word to be declined but rather should be treated like a (proper / don't know the correct english phrase) name. Thus Colossus, Colossi (plural / as a dependence on the original Latin word) or Colossus (plural) would be the correct form to say it.
On April 16 2011 10:10 Toussre wrote: wheres the vocative case? edit: much better
You made an entire account just to note that? Wow, thats pretty impressive
actually my account was made about five days before this thread was made. this just happened to be my first post so thats why it looks like i made this account just to comment on it. on a side note, its even more impressive that you made an account just to comment about me making an account commenting on the vocative case of a second declension latin noun.
EPT![[image loading]](http://lemonwackyhello.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/grammarpolice.jpg)
I hate it when Tasteless says Collossussussss lol
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![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/wup9C.gif)
