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I'll admit, I'm a bit of a grammar stickler. I abhor text speech, and view it as a sign that the human race may be moving itself into the "not worth saving" category. When my favorite army, the Space Wolves, becomes a subject for some of the most horrendous misuses of English words and language, it makes me even more disappointed with my fellow gamers.

Primarily, I do not field puppies, or, for that matter, PUPPPEHHHS. My opponents face my Space Wolves. Sometimes, I refer to my Blood Claws as pups, more as a term of encouragement to get them to shoot a little more accurately. However, my Long Fangs, Wolf Guard, and Grey Hunters are definitely not pups.

Secondly, though the term can be used for the other Astartes, I don't think that SSSPEEEEEHSSS (or any other form of rolling your face/appendage across the keyboard spelling) can be applied unless the little flag beside your avatar shows a country where English is an unnecessary language.

Let's be honest here, Space Wolves are Vikings in space. As such, it's easy to just look at the image of mead-swilling berserkers and miss that they had more culture than just drinking and pillaging. Pick up Beowulf and read it. Or, just go watch the movie... Read the Sagas. These were a people that were able to put a story together, and use grammatical rules.

To talk in such ways about the space-faring, spiritual descendants of such people does a disservice to their history and to the current, real world users of the English language. Do yourselves proud.

Now, I have to go, for I think I hear the rumbling engines of Hellhounds and Chimeras bearing veteran flamer units.

My personal preference is either Codex: Space Werewolves or Codex: Lycanthropy. Codex: Vile Heretics and Barbaric Abominations upon the Empire just doesn't have a ring to it. Would Codex: Space Vikings make you feel better?

i hate seeing them referred to as space puppies too...

This post straddles the line between 'don't mock space wolves' and 'use proper English'. I approve of using proper English, but I also approve of mocking anything and everything. Therefore, I shall continue to call your Space Wolves 'spehss puppehs!' because I have proven my own ability to string together a coherent sentence and, honestly, don't care whether your flea-ridden toy soldiers have epic sagas or not.

Awww my Spess Puppeh post got deleted :(

Why do the Mods Hate the Spess Puppehz!!!!!

Just kidding, Space Wolves are awesome, so there

Someone dares to call my toy soldiers by a mocking name! Is nothing sacred?!?!?!

In all seriousness, each army gets made fun of for something. I'm an Ultrasmurf player, so I have already made my peace with getting mocked. :(

Except Necrons. People haven't really made up a mocking nickname for them because face it, playing Necrons is punishment enough.

My post dedicated to siapaan weabooo sphes mehreens was deleted. I am made sad by this.

I dub the necrons the future spambots. They can be annoying and not worth looking at... until they redo their codex.

People don't say "Spehs Mahreenz" or "Spehs Puppeehz" to mock them or make fun of them. You're missing the point. "Yeah man! Those are space puppies! Because we all know that PUPPIES SUCK!" No. Puppies are actually pretty awesome. It's an awesome nickname. There's no doubt that they're powerful and all that junk. Intentional misspellings and such are just funny to read. It doesn't mean the person typing them is a slow. It isn't even in the same category as "text speak" which is "for = 4, you = u" that kind of business. "Spehs Mahreenz" is alternative phonetic spelling like lolcat speak.

Codex: World Eaters

I just think it makes people seem slowed. And that the interwebs are making people even more stupid than normal.

TauAdmiral wrote:I just think it makes people seem slowed. And that the interwebs are making people even more stupid than normal.

No, people were always this stupid, you just see more of them.

I'd bet that the people who spend a ton of time on the internet are some of the better educated folks out there.

TheBog wrote:I'd bet that the people who spend a ton of time on the internet are some of the better educated folks out there.

Also true. I have learnt more from Wikipedia (oh great infallible bastion of mankind's knowledge that it is) than I ever learnt from 13 years of school

Armandloft wrote: Read the Sagas. These were a people that were able to put a story together, and use grammatical rules.

The only problem I have with this is that the Nordic culture that Space Wolves borrow so heavily from in fact did not have a written language to create their Sagas. Their Sagas were told by word of mouth until around the 12th century with the massive shift to Christianity allowed for a large portion of their society to become literate, even then it wasn't until long after the time of Viking raiders that their knowledge of writing was transcribed into their vernacular language.

to simplify, Vikings were illiterate, It was not until the Vikings had become "civilized" (as per an anglo-saxon viewpoint) that they wrote down their Sagas. To say that they used "grammatical rules" is a complete fallacy.

Demogerg wrote:
to simplify, Vikings were illiterate, It was not until the Vikings had become "civilized" (as per an anglo-saxon viewpoint) that they wrote down their Sagas. To say that they used "grammatical rules" is a complete fallacy.

Bah, cease such talk lest a pack of angry linguists descend upon you and express their wrath. It is a fallacy to say that those same grammatical rules somehow do not apply to spoken tradition. Societies without a written form of their spoken languages may tend to have extremely flexible grammars, but those grammars still exist.

One day of work later, it's interesting what has developed.

I don't mind mockery. It does no harm to me to hear my forces referred in a manner such as, "My Thousand Sons are going to tear your Space Puppies a new one." That's fine with me. We call each other 'heretics' and 'traitor' all the time.

I was thinking more along the line of talking about them as an abstract. Such as, "The Space Wolves are getting a new codex" becomes, "New 'dex for the SPESS PUPPEHZ!". This isn't mockery, and is something that I see as being more detrimental to us as a community.

If the book was called Codex: Space Vikings, then I would be extremely happy. This might curse them to choking in the last round of a tournament, so might stop some of the bandwagonning.

As for the lack of writing for the Sagas, just ponder this. Here we gather about the fire that is Dakka. Our avatars have become our faces. We share stories of our battles. Admonish those that do not fight by the rules set forth. All the words that are written/spoken have a shared rule set. There are tribal/colloquial rules. Stories return, told by others. They often bear only minimal of changes, or are corrected by those who were there/know more. The main difference lies in our words being written and theirs spoken. Also, I concede, that our battles are about toys, and theirs involved real life. Just some thoughts about lack of literacy not equaling a lack of grammar.

You have mainly the voice acting of the later Dawn of War games to blame for all this "SPEHHSS MUHREENS" talk. Writing it like this is a constant mockery of those games and, hopefully, a reminder for the game designers to do a better job next time.

(Owning the german versions, I didn't notice anything special...until I saw the videos on youtube and almost exploded from laughing )

Demogerg wrote:

Armandloft wrote: Read the Sagas. These were a people that were able to put a story together, and use grammatical rules.

The only problem I have with this is that the Nordic culture that Space Wolves borrow so heavily from in fact did not have a written language to create their Sagas. Their Sagas were told by word of mouth until around the 12th century with the massive shift to Christianity allowed for a large portion of their society to become literate, even then it wasn't until long after the time of Viking raiders that their knowledge of writing was transcribed into their vernacular language.

to simplify, Vikings were illiterate, It was not until the Vikings had become "civilized" (as per an anglo-saxon viewpoint) that they wrote down their Sagas. To say that they used "grammatical rules" is a complete fallacy.

Runic FTW. I can read it, BOUNS POINTS if you can too. Vikings = leet

as far as grahmmar goes: We on the moon have advanced faaaaar beyond your silly earth grammar! We use "z" in the place of "s", we shorten phrases like "laugh out loud" to things like LOL, and the word "you" has been completely phased by the letter "u", much like weekdayz. This way our vastly superior mooninte brainz can move on to more important things than reading. Like stealing things and looking at porn and vadalizing everything in sight. Dont bother trying to understand our ways, we are vastly superior and we rule the internetz.... and umm.. everything as else as well! dont question it. Now all bow before your digital ruler.

I give this thread Fifty's "Most Irrelvant Thread Ever" award.

You think nicknames are annoying? Well do ya?
I am the most irritating 40k player in existence! I scream brakabrakabrakabraka at the top of my lungs when my shoota armed Ork Boyz fire or I make idiotic helicopter noises when my deffkoptas move!
I rest my case.

Spehz Puppehz are da best!
Dey pwn da uvver Spehz Mahrinz, except da Blud Angles.

(The day that the human race is measured in terms of grammer is the day that cavemen shall rise up and inherit the earth. Get a life mate, it's a joke. Take it like a man!)

Emperors Faithful wrote:Spehz Puppehz are da best!
Dey pwn da uvver Spehz Mahrinz, except da Blud Angles.

(The day that the human race is measured in terms of grammer is the day that cavemen shall rise up and inherit the earth. Get a life mate, it's a joke. Take it like a man!)

Da Blud Angles iz da bestest cauze dey iz red an' wez all noes da red onez is wot goez da fastestyest and haz got da most dakka!

Ok, I'll go back to my corner again

@OP: you had to reaize you'd get a bunch of gitz, (me) blathering nonsense at you for making this thread.

First off, to the OP: I agree with almost everything you said (but not for the same reasons) and wish that everyone who posted on the internet would do so in a clear, intelligent manner.

But they won't. Ever. No matter what you say, or do, you will never convince people who want to act like idiots to act like anything other than idiots. The real tragedy is that you can tell 'alternate phonetic spelling' from real mispellings, and the number of people who actually are slack jawed drooling mouthbreathers just banging their faces into a keyboard and hoping to get a message across is actually fairly small. By and large it is just people who seem to find it funny to act like a slack jawed drooling mouthbreather.

Also, if you get all excited about vikings, that's cool. But...vikings are just another dead culture that fanboys loot, as exciting to most of us as ninjas, pirates, samurai, knights, cowboys, and 20's gangsters.

I realize that you are offended by the idiotic treatment of your subject material on the internet. But the tragic reality is that the internet treats everything that way. You and I have to learn to adapt or just quit reading.

Norfulk wrote:Runic FTW. I can read it, BOUNS POINTS if you can too. Vikings = leet

Reminds me my Necromunda gang, where all the members had names taken from the norwegian sagas and where written with futhark runes on the sheet xD

Dark wrote:

Norfulk wrote:Runic FTW. I can read it, BOUNS POINTS if you can too. Vikings = leet

Reminds me my Necromunda gang, where all the members had names taken from the norwegian sagas and where written with futhark runes on the sheet xD

That's pretty much how i came up with my name. If i ever have a son I'm totally naming him Beowulf, that or Ragnulf.

*unloads veteran flamer unit*

This is a joke right? Someone getting uptight about about spehss marinez?

Getting irritated by something like, 'lol, I iz agreeing with you bruv, brrup', I can agree with. Getting annoyed by people deliberately mocking the latest GW poster boy marine unit is a waste of time.

Telling me I'm doing a disservice to the 'spiritual descendants' of a load of thieving, drinking, fighting, raping, looting, burning, smelly European pirates from a thousand years ago just makes me laugh. Sorry, but telling me that I should show more respect to their culture because,' they were able to put a story together' is actually quite possibly the most hilarious thing I've read yet today. Thank you for the few minutes of, 'loling', your post just gave me.

Gwar! wrote:

TheBog wrote:I'd bet that the people who spend a ton of time on the internet are some of the better educated folks out there.

Also true. I have learnt more from Wikipedia (oh great infallible bastion of mankind's knowledge that it is) than I ever learnt from 13 years of school

didn't you learn to read at the school under the bridge (your avatar contains a troll no?)

I use to call them space puppies cause it makes em sound wimpy.. And leman russ fanboys are the worst of all primarch fanboys on the internet.