Re: ANNOUNCEMENT: "The Light: Shelby's Addendum" AVAILABLE NOW


Mon, 04 Dec 1995 17:24:09 GMT

"Andrew C. Plotkin" <erkyrath+@CMU.EDU> wrote:

>jholder@nmsu.edu (John Holder) writes:
>> Martha Kuehl (mlkuehl@students.wisc.edu) mentioned in rec.arts.int-fiction tha\
>> t::
>>
>> > A strangeness has fallen.
>>
>> The game sounds interesting, but I hate this line. It makes the grammarian
>> in me cringe.

>Whereas I like language to be used for effect, not correctness. The
>line above gets my attention, and it's a hell of a lot better than
>using cliches. (Uh, sorry :)

>I was thinking earlier today about a poem by Rosemary Kirstein, which
>begins:

>"Who has seen her, shadowing down the sky?"

>And goes on in the mode, doing *very* weird things with grammar and
>meaning, but effective nevertheless.

>(I played _The Light_ for a few hours last night, and it looks good.)

>--Z

Glad you like it...and here is the reply to the above that I fretted
about all morning and which caused me to get no work done:

Wow! While I expected my game to receive some criticism, I certainly
did not expect it to be directed at the first sentence! Tough crowd
<G>. I must rally to the defense of my grammar. Though I am quite
certain that the game contains many a grammatical faux pas, I do not
feel that “A strangeness has fallen” is one of them.

I am assuming your criticism is directed towards the word
“strangeness." The word is defined as the quality or state of being
strange. A quality is certainly a discernible, if not tangible, thing
so why can’t it fall? Poetic license also comes into play as, in the
context of the game, the “strangeness” is a physical phenomenon and
not a quality or state. This is what happens when one reads too much
Joyce: if you cannot find a word that fits, then make one up <G>.

Perhaps we need a rec.arts.interactive.fiction.grammar group?

Anyway....here's me bus.

Cheers.

"Elvis people are nicer people than the people who laugh at Elvis People."
David Thomas - "Media Priests Of The Big Lie"