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Author Topic: A simple question: why Urist "Mc"?  (Read 13744 times)

Remuthra

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Re: A simple question: why Urist "Mc"?
« Reply #15 on: December 31, 2014, 06:51:58 pm »

No, actually :P.

Urist Tilaturist

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Re: A simple question: why Urist "Mc"?
« Reply #16 on: January 01, 2015, 07:22:58 am »

Since dwarven surnames are always 2 words, Urist Miner is not a good dwarven name. To make a dwarven name, it would have to be "Urist Stupidminer", "Urist Lostminer" or something similar. However, single surnames based on occupations are common in English.

Mc, or mac, means son in some old Gaelic languages, so Angus Mac Dougall was Angus the son of Dougall. This later became a surname, hence McDonald and so on. It was never used with occupations, since nobody to my knowledge had an occupation as his first name. It does not seem very dwarven to use, since it is not gender equal.

I guess I have not watched enough Scottish or Irish media to see people using "McAdjective" names.
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Holomanga

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Re: A simple question: why Urist "Mc"?
« Reply #17 on: January 01, 2015, 11:25:18 am »

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Urist Tilaturist

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Re: A simple question: why Urist "Mc"?
« Reply #18 on: January 01, 2015, 11:53:17 am »

Not a very widely used trope in the places where "Mc" or "Mac" names originated (Scotland and Ireland). It mostly seems to belong to certain aspects of US pop culture. A trope is still a trope even if not used much, but it is not a common trope.

Does anybody know what the origins of that trope are? Obviously characters with Scottish/Irish ancestry, or just using a "mc" name to imitate a Scotsman (silly names like Hamish McHaggis) do not count.
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tussock

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Re: A simple question: why Urist "Mc"?
« Reply #19 on: January 06, 2015, 03:42:15 am »

It's a convenient way of indicating a surname in places colonised by the UK (including Scotland), especially when giving someone a profession or task or emotion or whatever for a name. Urist McNouned. In the UK itself things are probably a bit more sensitive about appropriation of such terms, there being a bit of a history of wars and whatnot.

It's also how "Mc" was originally used, back in že olde tyms. Suitably medieval and stuff.
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Janbure

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Re: A simple question: why Urist "Mc"?
« Reply #20 on: January 06, 2015, 11:36:29 am »

I've never seen the point of going through hassle of building a danger room, soldier became at least masterful anyway after a year of training.
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Urist Tilaturist

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Re: A simple question: why Urist "Mc"?
« Reply #21 on: January 06, 2015, 11:47:45 am »

It's a convenient way of indicating a surname in places colonised by the UK (including Scotland), especially when giving someone a profession or task or emotion or whatever for a name. Urist McNouned. In the UK itself things are probably a bit more sensitive about appropriation of such terms, there being a bit of a history of wars and whatnot.

It's also how "Mc" was originally used, back in že olde tyms. Suitably medieval and stuff.

I already said what Mc or Mac means. It means son and was used to denote that somebody was a son of somebody, or later that somebody was a member of a clan descended from somebody (so Macdonald was a member of a clan descended from someone called Donald). It was NOT used with professions, tasks, emotions or anything other than personal names. That is an invention of fairly recent US pop culture, and is the equivalent of calling a Russian "Minervich" if he is a miner - "vich" means "son" and is only used to denote a father's or ancestor's name, so Vladimirovich means son or descendant of Vladimir, for example. "Minervich", or "McMiner", would mean that the person or dwarf had a father or ancestor called Miner, which seems somewhat unlikely, especially since dwarves do not really have inherited surnames.
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Dyret

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Re: A simple question: why Urist "Mc"?
« Reply #22 on: January 06, 2015, 03:59:29 pm »

So... this is the new learning curve thread?
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Urist Tilaturist

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Re: A simple question: why Urist "Mc"?
« Reply #23 on: January 06, 2015, 05:34:34 pm »

What was the learning curve thread? I presume it was some kind of old joke about DF having a steep learning curve, or something similar.
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smakemupagus

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Re: A simple question: why Urist "Mc"?
« Reply #24 on: January 06, 2015, 05:59:28 pm »

I think that you actually do understand, that it's just silly internet shorthand for jokes/etc., signifying that two nouns together are forming a name.

If you want to be pedantic about it, what's up with your name then?  Even if "Urist Uristurist" might be grammatically correct (not sure whether the repetition in the second name is allowed), the Dwarfish language doesn't use "-er" as a derivational suffix any more than it uses "Mc-".

Urist Tilaturist

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Re: A simple question: why Urist "Mc"?
« Reply #25 on: January 06, 2015, 06:02:21 pm »

If they cannot, that is news to me. I took the name from the DF wiki, which says:

"Fun Fact 2: Dwarfs can obtain the name Urist Uristurister."

See here:
http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Urist

Dwarven names can end in -er, since I had a dwarf called Monom Odber once, but I have no idea if Urist Uristurister is a real dwarven name or if the wiki was lying. It was rated D for dwarf after all.
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smakemupagus

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Re: A simple question: why Urist "Mc"?
« Reply #26 on: January 06, 2015, 06:09:33 pm »

If they cannot, that is news to me. I took the name from the DF wiki, which says:

"Fun Fact 2: Dwarfs can obtain the name Urist Uristurister."

See here:
http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Urist

Dwarven names can end in -er, since I had a dwarf called Monom Odber once, but I have no idea if Urist Uristurister is a real dwarven name or if the wiki was lying. It was rated D for dwarf after all.

Od-ber
"Od" = tunnel
"Ber" = earth

Not
"Odb-er"

edit. ... I think that D for Dwarf is messing with you a little bit.  "-er" is english, not dwarfish, so even if there were such a derivational suffix it would be different.  But if there is such a construct in Dwarfish I don't see it.  I think the closest to "dagger-er" we can get in dwarfish would be "dagger-one" i.e. "urist-lod".  So perhaps, Urist Uristlod, or  Urist Uristuristlod if you're willing to go three words in the second name.
« Last Edit: January 06, 2015, 06:19:39 pm by smakemupagus »
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Urist Tilaturist

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Re: A simple question: why Urist "Mc"?
« Reply #27 on: January 06, 2015, 06:25:25 pm »

I thought the "er" was just what happened when the same word repeated twice, entirely based on that wiki article. Is the name Urist Uristurist possible?

I would like to change my username to something genuinely dwarven if possible, so if that means changing the "urister" I shall if I can.
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smakemupagus

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Re: A simple question: why Urist "Mc"?
« Reply #28 on: January 06, 2015, 06:36:29 pm »

Is the name Urist Uristurist possible?

I think so, but I'm not 100% positive.  "Dagger" is definitely allowed to be either the front or the back part of a compound word.  I don't know for sure whether the same word repeated twice is allowed in a compound though.

Dyret

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Re: A simple question: why Urist "Mc"?
« Reply #29 on: January 06, 2015, 06:47:35 pm »

What was the learning curve thread? I presume it was some kind of old joke about DF having a steep learning curve, or something similar.

GavJ started a thread about how DF actually has a shallow learning curve because science, then a bunch of people went well yeah, but we don't actually say that because language, then it kind of just got stuck in an infinite loop until Toady pulled the plug 50 pages later or so. It was beautiful and amazing and quite silly.
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