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Post by legion on Feb 26, 2010 23:35:07 GMT
For some reason I'm keep thinking Coyote has a Spanish Accent. I don't know why... I imagine Coyote as having no accent. After all, the world is his home. Everybody has an accent.
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Post by Casey on Feb 26, 2010 23:39:50 GMT
I imagine Coyote as having no accent. After all, the world is his home. Everybody has an accent. Coyote has an American accent. Jones has no accent. You can feel free to argue the latter statement with Tom if you want to.
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Post by legion on Feb 27, 2010 0:43:04 GMT
No accent probably means she has Tom's accent >
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coyotagoat
Junior Member
Helluva poker face.
Posts: 65
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Post by coyotagoat on Feb 27, 2010 0:50:24 GMT
It is kinda his job to trick people, I just wonder when this one turns bad, even If coyote did just give it to Annie as a present. A big motif with trickster gods is what happens when they go too far. Look at Loki, making (Hod?) kill Balder, then leading the evil side of the FRIGGIN APOCALYPSE. don't know if the same thing will happen with coyote (probably not the apocalypse) but the knife will probably lead to some HILARIOUS HIJINKS of the ensuing variety.
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coyotagoat
Junior Member
Helluva poker face.
Posts: 65
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Post by coyotagoat on Feb 27, 2010 0:56:29 GMT
(sorry, in response to the "is coyote tricking Annie conversation. Forgot t quote it. )
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Ruushi
Full Member
Touch the onion!!!
Posts: 146
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Post by Ruushi on Feb 27, 2010 1:54:31 GMT
The Blast Sword would do the same as the tooth/blade/whatever-it-is.
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Post by Mezzaphor on Feb 27, 2010 3:24:57 GMT
*ding* Ninja-edit: but if he can change any little rock into a tooth, why bothering taking out one of his own teeth *then* replacing it, rather than directly changing a rock into the knife? There's a distinction between Coyote gifting a part of his body - and, therefore, his magic - and Coyote gifting a neat rock. According to Coyote's own words, the rocks are a part of his body. Granted, this way makes it much clearer.
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Post by Casey on Feb 27, 2010 5:02:36 GMT
No accent probably means she has Tom's accent > No. It means she has no accent. Tom has repeated this many times. He was very clear what he meant when he said that.
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Post by TBeholder on Feb 27, 2010 8:35:06 GMT
... I still think a new car would make a better gift Then it should be cooler than what she can borrow from Kat, which isn't easy. If she got a place where to drive it anyway, that is. On the other hand, I'd be willing to bet he can see out of that knife, if not control it. Since that trick with seeds failed anyway... Heh, that just evoked a mad scene in my head: Annie comes up to Jack and says No, just stabs and "There was a scorpion spider on your head..." All I know is that it looks frickin' awesome, and that I want one for my own this very instant. The only thing that can be cooler than a shapeshifting weapon is a symbiotic shapeshifting armor/weapon. "Armor-and-earrings", Witchblade & co... Iridea's Tear somewhere in between. I imagine Coyote as having no accent. After all, the world is his home. More likely, it constantly changes.
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Post by chiparoo on Feb 27, 2010 13:30:37 GMT
No accent probably means she has Tom's accent > No. It means she has no accent. Tom has repeated this many times. He was very clear what he meant when he said that. Think of it as "Accent Neutral." Accent Neutral means someone pronounces and emphasizes words and phrases as the standard dictionary says. It's also called "Region-Free," and many news reporters (at least in the U.S.) strive to talk in a region-free fashion.
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Post by nikita on Feb 27, 2010 13:47:25 GMT
Someone should actually make this knife.
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Post by Yin on Feb 27, 2010 14:08:30 GMT
That's what cosplay is for. ;D
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Post by Snes on Feb 27, 2010 18:08:56 GMT
I think Coyote must have his own reasons for giving Annie this gift, but I doubt they're as simple as spying on her. I'm sure he foresees a situation where he would want her to use it.
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Post by legion on Feb 27, 2010 18:24:06 GMT
No accent probably means she has Tom's accent > No. It means she has no accent. Tom has repeated this many times. He was very clear what he meant when he said that. "No accent" is meaningless; an accent is the specific way one pronounces things. You cannot have "no accent", unless you're mute. Even the "standard way/region-neutral pronounciation" (whatever we define it to be, and which is hardly ever really practiced by anyone) *is* an accent. And when people say "X has no accent", it is generally safe to assume the person really means "X has the same accent than me" (because the person believes he himself has no accent). But to the ear of New Yorker, someone speaking Standard English From England™ has hell of an accent. See this article for more informations: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regional_accents_of_English
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Post by djublonskopf on Feb 27, 2010 18:53:03 GMT
No. It means she has no accent. Tom has repeated this many times. He was very clear what he meant when he said that. "No accent" is meaningless; an accent is the specific way one pronounces things. You cannot have "no accent", unless you're mute. Even the "standard way/region-neutral pronounciation" (whatever we define it to be, and which is hardly ever really practiced by anyone) *is* an accent. And when people say "X has no accent", it is generally safe to assume the person really means "X has the same accent than me" (because the person believes he himself has no accent). But to the ear of New Yorker, someone speaking Standard English From England™ has hell of an accent. See this article for more informations: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regional_accents_of_EnglishWhile it might be generally safe to assume this or that, the general case was not being discussed. This particular case was. You're right that there's no such thing as "no" accent . . . IF by accent you mean "an individual's distinctive or characteristic inflection, tone, or choice of words", Merriam-Webster's definition 2a. Since "accent" in that definition is specific to each individual, each individual has, by definition, an "accent" and nobody can be without one. If, however, we're instead talking about definitions 1 or 2b: "An articulative effort giving prominence to one syllable over adjacent syllables" and "a way of speaking typical of a particular group of people", respectively . . . then it's quite easy to have no accent. By definition one, if you don't stress any syllables over any other syllables, you have no accent, and by definition 2b, if your way of speaking is atypical of ANY particular groups of people, then you have no accent. I'm not claiming to know Tom's mind on this, but what "no accent" means does at least in part depend on what you mean by "accent".
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Post by Uncle Putte on Feb 27, 2010 19:13:28 GMT
Hrm. Excuse me, but...
HAAAAAAAAAAAAX!
There. Dealt with. Just the resentment of a man who's old enough to have lost a couple of his permanent teeth. Smug divine bugger, I had to pay an arm and a leg to get mine replaced. This is why I don't get along with gods...
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Post by King Mir on Feb 27, 2010 19:52:52 GMT
No. It means she has no accent. Tom has repeated this many times. He was very clear what he meant when he said that. Think of it as "Accent Neutral." Accent Neutral means someone pronounces and emphasizes words and phrases as the standard dictionary says. It's also called "Region-Free," and many news reporters (at least in the U.S.) strive to talk in a region-free fashion. Jones is a DVD player!
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Post by legion on Feb 27, 2010 20:52:22 GMT
djublonskopf >
Well, baring aside the hypothesis that Tom meant Jones speaks in a completly mechanical voice without any audible accentuation pattern, I style have difficulties seeing how one can have no accent if by accent we mean "a way of speaking typical of a particular group of people"; because even the standard language *is* typical of a particular group of people!
For instance, if we take the standard form of English found in England, the so-called "Received Pronounciation" (RP) or "BBC English", historically, it was simply the accent of people from the counties north of London; today it is more tied with social class, but it is nonetheless marked: only 2% of Britons speak pure RP. And it's supposed to be the standard form!
Soooo, maybe we can conclude from this that Jones speaks pure RP!
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Post by Casey on Feb 27, 2010 22:48:18 GMT
You don't seem to have a lot of faith that Tom knows what he's talking about when it comes to his own characters. There's obviously something special about Jones, and Tom isn't going to give away any specific details that would reveal anything he doesn't want revealed, but he does give us these tidbits of information to keep us interested, and he has said before specifically that she has no accent. Not that she is accent-neutral, or that she has his accent... that she has -no- accent. I don't see that there's a lot of sense in refuting the statement of an author concerning his own creation. How about you put away the linguistic textbook and enjoy the ride until we know how such a thing is possible in the Gunnerverse.
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optern
Junior Member
Posts: 84
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Post by optern on Feb 27, 2010 23:06:14 GMT
You're just playing the semantics game, and it's darned annoying. The point is, the way Jones talks is impossible to discern as coming from any place or even (importantly) any time.
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Post by legion on Feb 27, 2010 23:21:55 GMT
I have faith that Tom know what he's talking about when he talks about his characters.
But I also know from experience that people who don't know much about linguistics and language tend to, very surprisingly, not know what they're talking about when they talk about languages; or sometimes they do know what they're talking about but don't know how to express it in a clear fashion.
That's why I'm trying my best to interpret, in a charitable way, what "Jones has no accent" *could* mean for it to make sense. My best guess is that Jones speaks with the RP accent of English, which is considered the most standard, prestigious and less-marked form of that language.
Because it cannot literaly mean she speaks a language without accent, which doesn't mean anything — you might as well say she speaks a language without words, that would be just as useful and sensible.
If I allow myself to insist on that point, it's precisely because GC is not an anything-goes monty-hall comic, but a carefully planed work which, asides from the fantastic elements, aims at a minimal amount of realism; Tom has shown several time he had done a minimal amount of research to present various background elements realistically (like the double-slit experiment).
I don't claim infallibility, but neither does Tom, and I don't think I'm being disrespectful of him or his work by pointing and explaining all this.
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Post by Casey on Feb 28, 2010 1:31:47 GMT
Look, optern, I don't know who you were addressing your comment to, but if it was me, let me point out to you that I am only repeating Tom's words and reminding that he was very specific in his word choice... it is legion who is making the semantical argument about what it "must" mean and how it "must" be impossible or whatever because he knows so much about linguistics or whatever.
And legion... okay fine, you want to be the one to say that Tom doesn't know what he's talking about when it comes to languages, fine. I said at the outset that you're basically arguing against Tom in that regard. I'm not going to become Tom's surrogate so you can argue against him by arguing with me. I'm just the messenger, so count me out of this. I don't really care if you have a degree in linguistics and can make a semantical argument about how Tom is wrong. I just intend to encourage people to wait and see what Tom meant by what he said, rather than to rush to judgment and try to tell us what he must have meant by what he said. Peace out, broham.
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Post by mithrandir on Feb 28, 2010 2:12:44 GMT
The way I process "Jones has no accent" is that she instinctively speaks in the same accent as whoever she is talking to - if talking to a group, she speaks in the accent most of the room would consider "not an accent".
Another alternative, which is quite viable in this universe, is that her voice is magically perceived by all listeners as being in the same accent as their own. Which would make Jones highly magical, but of course that's hardly unprecedented.
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Post by cannedbreadmaker on Feb 28, 2010 2:42:12 GMT
Coyote doesn't understand the drama about Christmas shopping.
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nijimei
New Member
Srsly?
Posts: 28
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Post by nijimei on Feb 28, 2010 6:15:06 GMT
] Jones is a DVD player! *Mindasplode* Not a robot, but an even more emotionless appliance!!! Because as we know, even robots can develop crushes. (Remember to mock them in front of their peers if this happens)
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Post by hal9000 on Feb 28, 2010 6:31:47 GMT
I get the feeling that what Coyote is doing here is the equivalent of giving nuclear weapons to cavemen, and that the first time Annie tries to use this blade, something will go horribly wrong (or perhaps horribly right, as TVtropes puts it).
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Post by judgedeadd on Feb 28, 2010 7:24:39 GMT
There's a distinction between Coyote gifting a part of his body - and, therefore, his magic - and Coyote gifting a neat rock. According to Coyote's own words, the rocks are a part of his body. Granted, this way makes it much clearer. In other words, Coyote didn't transform the rock into a part of his body. The rock was a part of his the whole time. In fact, that four-legged mammal Annie can see is but a tiny part of Coyote, who is the size of the entire Forest, but decided to make himself visible this way for the benefit of mundane onlookers. How's that for speculation?
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Post by Charlotte on Feb 28, 2010 10:23:40 GMT
No. It means she has no accent. Tom has repeated this many times. He was very clear what he meant when he said that. Could someone ask him if, when Jones says "Parley", does it sound like "pah lee" or "par lee"?
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Post by legion on Feb 28, 2010 16:32:51 GMT
Casey > I have the odd impression you are feeling deeply insulted simply because I pointed out that, in one specific instance, Tom's choice of words to describe something was not very accurate and sound, resulting in an ambiguous sentence open to interpretation; and indeed, in this thread alone, we have had five or six different postulated interpretations of what "Jones has no accent" could actually mean; and unless one was to consider that everything Tom says must be taken in a fundamentalist/literalist kind of way, I don't see where's the wrong in that.
I didn't intend to seem to claim to know what Tom meant better than himself, and if I have left this impression, or if I offended you in any other way, I appologize.
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Post by Casey on Mar 1, 2010 0:18:51 GMT
Your odd impression is incorrect, I'm not insulted at all. I have no vested interest in this as I've pointed out. I do think that Tom's word can be taken in a literalist way, because he knows more about what he means by what he said than we could ever guess at. I think it's okay to say that you don't yet see what he could mean by what he said. I don't think it's okay to just go around saying he's wrong though, since there's a high likelihood that he knows what he meant by what he said better than anyone else.
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