I was having isues with drawing a freaking sword, I'd type wield sword or get sword from bucket and it wouldn't work so I'd have to type get short sword.
I'm not playing at the moment, for various reasons (can waste my time browsing the web, but not MUDding ast the moment, much to my regret), but I can't think why this would be happening. Unless you had another sword-but-not-named-sword, e.g. a scimitar, that was lying on the ground, somehow intercepting your parser's "sword" request but not actually available to "wield"... Something like that. (Sounds wrong, but best guess.)
As for "get sword from bucket"... nope, can't think of a reason why that wouldn't work (
if the sword, any sword, was inside the bucket... or did you have two buckets? "get sword from bucket 2" might have worked in that case, or a variant thereof...).
But then for a long time I've had appropriate scabbards/belt loops/dagger scabbards or the like from which I can "draw sword", "draw mace", "draw dagger into left hand; draw stilletto into right hand" or whatever combination of available weapons, scabbards and skills I was working with at the time (I think at times I've strained my carrying ability and STR attribute by having dagger-scabbard boots on, a pair of regular dagger scabbards, a dagger-belt, a couple of full scabbards suited for long/curved weapons and a belt loop for a mace, though never tried a stave-holding think at the same time... even if possible, that would have been impractical
. Actually, that was mostly aliased, but (drilling down) that's the basics behind it.
Maybe you could have checked on the talker channels. Or, if still not too old, the 'official' helpers via the inbuilt
newbiehelper system. They're very good, and while they won't hand-hold they will often do what they can to help you overcome difficulties and reach Enlightenment.