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First let me say, I think its cool Orks & Goblins are orky. It adds character and I am the furthest thing from being politically correct... but that being said:

When I was MUCH younger, I didn't realize that Orks spoke Cockney (or that GW was a British company) , so I thought is was a play on Ebonics and "american urban slang", so I had an entirely different mental image of orks & goblins for about 10 years...

I was always like, wow, they are being so obvious... No one makes fun of Ebonics in print.... how can they make fun of them?

Where is the ACLU and NAACP?

Then I realized it was ok, cuz it was the British, and they were making fun of other whites. Which is, for some reason, perfectly ok.

I think it says more about you than it does about GW.

They are not making fun out of anyone.

Orks have never said "aks" (ask) or trippin' so I don't see how their dialect could have been mistaken for ebonics. However, I think it would be funny if they spoke Jive (from the Airplane! movies)...

Leg 'er down a smack 'em yak 'em!

Of course, I also have a desire to create a Mexican themed Ork army using models of '73 El Caminos as Ork Trucks.

When Orks axe you a question, they are actually hitting you with an axe.

Ok, Albatross. Whatev. Not gonna go there.

Vlad.. Smack'em yack'em. Slip me some skin, momma!
Jive Turkey!

Albatross wrote:I think it says more about you than it does about GW.

Seconded. It shows an intense lack of history of GW, Orks/Orcs, and ebonics.

'Oy, wheeze orks 'ate dese 'umies an' der prezumpinz' 'afore we give 'em lumpinz'
afta we go krumpin'!

WAAAGH!

I love those orks and their willingness to stomp a point of view flat.

Granted I didn't know the history of GW or Orks when I was 15 years old. But trust me, I know ebonics. And at a glance, they can be confused by a kid.

I didn't say it was my current view. I was making conversation, not looking for trolls.

CitizenPrime wrote:.... I was making conversation, not looking for trolls.

Welcome to the OT, where troll has become an art form.

GG

Albatross wrote:I think it says more about you than it does about GW.

They are not making fun out of anyone.

Actually, I thought GW had all but admitted that Orks were basically a jab at crazy soccer hooligans, etc.?

I'm certainly not ready to claim that they aren't making fun of anyone. They're making fun of someone, the question here is, who? They aren't poking fun at Ebonics though, that's for sure. Just keep in mind that GW is a UK-based company.


Also, Albatross. I have to say, your post is pretty damn cruel.

CitizenPrime wrote:But trust me, I know ebonics.

If that were true you would not have been connecting it to orcs and ebonics.

You also seem to be confusing American culture with British culture. This isn't an African American criticizing white America and it being Ok, this is a British company satarizing hooligans, or white on white crime. This wasn't then nor is it now an ethnic issue.

I think its alright for a guy to make a mistake because he didn't have a complete knowledge of GW's in-jokes. I think its cool when someone can come to a board and tell people that and not get attacked for it.



I am now wondering it okay to have fun with of cockneys/working class English language, but not okay to do the same with ebonics. I mean, obviously the first is harmless and the second isn't, but I'm entirely sure why.

I wonder if people are so quick to condemn someone, who openly admitted to his mistake, if only to distance themselves from his position. We should not be so quick to judge, but rather we should more quickly forgive and forget. I can understand his mistake, so please, lets lay off him eh?

GW bases it's armies off of different ideas and sometimes off of cultures and history that exist or have existed in the past. The IG for instance reminds me of the Russian empire and Soviet style armies that existed in the past with their looks, feel, and totalitarian and cannon fodder style of play and history.

Assuming that GW interprets the IG as Russians/Soviets, would Russians be offended by the IG's attempts to exemplefy the traits of their past military doctrine and national history?

Admittedly the first time I read it I missed that it was MUCH YOUNGER. Even after realizing the mistake there was still

I was always like, wow, they are being so obvious... No one makes fun of Ebonics in print.... how can they make fun of them?

Where is the ACLU and NAACP?

Then I realized it was ok, cuz it was the British, and they were making fun of other whites. Which is, for some reason, perfectly ok.

to deal with.

Almost none of that is true. Ebonics was made fun of all the time, even in many African-American communities. There is a reason why it is hardly brought up anymore. Ignoring the gross simplicity of the concept, whites also make fun of whites all the time as well.

In defence of the OP and as an african american, I can completely see where one would draw a conclusion like that. There is something about orks that does strike a chord, but not in a bad way. Their up front strait forward in your face style. The ability to make pretty much anything from scraps (Like my grand fathers ability to make anything out of tin and wood) and the love of crappy old Caddies you have to keep running for 15+years. Like 40k orks there are many who look down thier noses, but only a fool would underestimate them.
I thought the Orks were a mix of 90's films like boys in the hood, soccer fans and 90's gansta rap image. I saw an Image of a Bad Moon Ork with gold teeth, bling, a gun pointed sideways, hanging out of a truck filled with 9 more orks doing the same, and though what the OP did.

As far as talking goes, you'll know it's based on African-Americans when the Ork warboss looks at his big mek and says...

" Wuz up my Squigga?"

I have to say, i dont see it as making fun of anyone. All the cockneys i know are proud of their accents and such, i doubt they would find anything about the orc comparrison offensive. Its just fun, and thats the main issue here, sad bastards just look to get needlessly offended. Oh and orcs are awesome anyway, some of the cockey abuse they hurl at you on dow is laugh out loud funny.

I think I may have to get some jellied squigs for my Orks now...

Though to be honest, anyone who has actually heard a cockney probably would not think that Orks really sound like them, at least in my mind

Just thought their (spoken) language was based on dumbing down regular English into a base language... kind of like Scottish but more intelligible

Regionalised North and South divide of the UK, it's why the traditional racial enemies, Dwarves and Orcs, speak with accents from either side of the border.

'E'yup ye beardling, yer nowt but a pup an yer ancesters are watchin thee, best do us proud now laddie!'. (Northern Brit Dwarf accent).

'Oi, I reckon yur in fer a roight kickin ya stinkin gitz!'. (Working Class London Orc accent).

GW has always had a history of throwing pop culture references into their backgrounds a prime example with Orks is the most famous iron skull warboss of them all, Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka not to be confused with our most famous Warboss Mageret Thatcher the Iron Lady!

The Orks were initialy based on old school British football hooligans who supported the likes of Millwall, hence the cockney accent, one of their origional Ork source books was called "Ere we go".

Confusing accents is an easy thing to do, especialy if you arent familiar with the accent and are only seeing it in written form.

I think it's actually about the usual "GW ripping off Tolkien" stuff. The orcs in LOTR speak a lot like the urban poor of england at the time, and it's obvious that the hobbits are supposed to represent the rural poor. Tolkien didn't like the urban poor I reckon.

GW took that and went a bit further with it, making the link to football hooligans. Which was grand, I suppose, they do that a lot, their background tends to be more extreme than the source in some ways and watered down in others.

One point though- who says all football hooligans are white? Seems like a bit of a large assumption to me...
They're generally a social group, not an ethnic one.

I think at the time the "orks" and so on came into being, the football hooligans they were based off also happened to be huge racists...

You know, the typical thuggish white, with thick brow, huge hairy forearms, tats all over the place, and about 1% of the brain power that a normal human being requires to function, who can't cope with anything being different and who riots at every match "fer fun".

You know, the real football fans.

For whatever it's worth, I know several people who thought Orks were based off or possibly a jab at black culture on first glance. I live in the south, so that might be a factor too unfortunately :/

I was always kind of proud of the Ork/black overlap. If you think it's there in Warhammer. Check out world of war craft.


The Orcs starded out brown, were inslaved by humans.

Have a great leader who pushed for peace with the majority (Humans)

Although thier building and weapons are made of bit's of scrap they are still poud of them.

Playable trolls Are Islanders akin to hati or the virgin Islands, "Beware of da vudu!"

Goblins are the street hustlers trying to make a quick buck "Keep it real!"

It's actually a point of pride for us. It's actually cool to be inluded in things.


And nobody under 40 cares about the NAACP.

I really think that the mockney Ork franchise is very tired. As a Londoner, I can't vouch for many people who speak like this, unless they're complete morons. Ork psychology seems to be based on British football hooliganism which thankfully died a death years ago. If I had the misfortune to watch ''Football Factory'' again I'd see recreations of said morons, and, like manga, I don't want that enroaching on my hobby.

Orks have come a long way in terms of maturity; their visual style has dramatically increased, and they, like their fantasy counterparts, look meaner than ever. I don't see why they have this immature language thrust upon them. I'm not asking for them to speak like Richard Burton, but having an army of green Danny Dyer's is going to dent anyones credibility. I don't like the way all Londoners are tarred with the 'cockney' brush; it would be like me assuming that all New Yorkers sound like the Fonz, or that Frazzled spends all day listening to Garth Brooks. To stereotype an Ork, you'd highlight their savage nature, massive strength, animal cunning and resilience. I think people often forget that in their rush to shout cockney nonsense. LOTR is a fine example or Orcs (Uruk Hai) done good.

The absolute nadir of being involved in Games Workshop is to deploy your Orks to the sound of a store manager hollering at you ''in character''.

i thought ebonics was just poor grammar. . .

Funny,I always thought of orkz as GWs way of "taking the piss" concerning skinheads.

I see them as more of the trailer park/hillbilly rural white poor than anything, accent excepted. Building things out of scrap, loving guns/loud cars/beer, being laid back but still getting into fights, and so on.

It's a little odd that the orks actually seem like an island of sanity in 40k; they're sort of like the proles in 1984.

Hordini wrote:

Albatross wrote:I think it says more about you than it does about GW.

They are not making fun out of anyone.

Actually, I thought GW had all but admitted that Orks were basically a jab at crazy soccer hooligans, etc.?

I'm certainly not ready to claim that they aren't making fun of anyone. They're making fun of someone, the question here is, who? They aren't poking fun at Ebonics though, that's for sure. Just keep in mind that GW is a UK-based company.


Also, Albatross. I have to say, your post is pretty damn cruel.

Cruel? How? I think it's a fair point - Orks are represented as stupid and brutal savages, this is represented in their language (according to GW fluff) as an unsophisticated form of spoken english. What you read into that is entirely up to you. When I first became aware of GW orks/orcs, I didn't think 'black', 'white', 'cockney' or 'geordie' - I just thought 'stupid' and 'savage'. Like I said, they aren't making fun of anyone in particular, just the stupid and violent, whatever form they may take.

Good job no-one overreacted though, that was a close one!

Of course, the irony here is that whilst being based on Football Hooligans and Cockney spankers, rather than Ebonics, they very Football Hooligans and Cockney spankers have now adopted Ebonics. Well, some of them, with that ridiculous 'Urban' accent.

Tossers the lot of them. Yes, especially you, N-Dubz, you bad joke you!