Grrl Power #1205 – Feckin’ banjaxed eejit wordin’
Okay, I have a confession. “Core” here is a Patreon cameo character, as mentioned on the previous page, but as I was writing this one, I realized that the description I have for him doesn’t include a name. Also the email I have for the guy whose character it is isn’t valid anymore, so I thought it’d be funny to make one up for him and also make it, as Sydney puts it, “Celtic gibberish.” But I must have emailed the guy at some point when I still had valid contact info and gotten the name because it’s right there on page 782. I just didn’t add the name to my cameo notes, like a boss.
And that’s how I wrote and drew this page and only just realized my screw-up as I’m posting it this evening, so… I had to scramble to edit Sydney’s first word bubble, and I guess “Core” is now the guy’s supranym?
People had questions about the status of The Veil and its current demon coverage. That’s… hinted at here, but will be addressed in a page or two.
The September vote incentive is up! Let’s call it the November vote incentive and just say I’ve still got two I.O.U’s, eh?
Well, Dabbler is doing her Dabbler things, and the Patreon version has a nude variant and a comic that… I don’t know, expounds on the goings on of the initial picture?
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Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
SuperheroThey're super, thanks for asking!
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Not UpdatingNo longer updating or only updates sporadically, but definitely worth reading.
SeriouslySeriously you guys. If you like Grrl Power the check these out.
"Mature"Mature subject matter and occasionally something explicit but usually safe. Can't guarantee the ads are safe though.
Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
Living in Ireland, I can confirm Irish names can look like ciphers.
TryWelsh. <_<‘
Names are funny in the English Language as they can be from other countries and therefore follow other rules of pronunciation, or get weird anglicanised pronunciations.
The Scottish Surname Dalziel, or the English Surname Belvoir are good examples.
They have counterintuitive pronunciations.
I even know of a place called Beauchief, which you’d think is pronounce ‘Boh-sheef’ yet is actually pronounced ‘Bee-cheef’!
And don’t get me started on Cirencester or the other ‘cester’, ‘chester’ and ‘caster’ names.
Cockburn street in Edinburgh is not pronounced how you think.
Also, my favorite spelling: Djeouphgheriegh
Announcement in the society pages: “Cockburns off on Honeymoon.”
I’m guessing Jeff Garry
Close: Geoffrey (or Jeffery)
Fess up, you are just punching random keys.
Nope, Guesticules got it right.
It’s pronounced “Jeffery”.
Hmmm…..
My favorite “English” name is Chumondleaux – pronounced “Chumley”
I mean…what?
You mean, that kid from “Pawn Stars”? Thought it was spelt ‘Chumlee’…
Cholmondley
Worcestershire.
Dal-ze-ill? Is there another way to pronounce it?
And ‘Belvoir’ is French (or Norman)
As for Worcestershire: depends if you are English or American (one has five syllables and the other three)
I understand the correct pronunciation is basically “Dee-ell”.
Only if you are hanging around with Pascoe
Other wise: https://www.howtopronounce.com/dalziel
I have it on the authority of the Three Stooges that the W one is pronounced with 7 syllables.
As a Canadian, Worcestershire has 4 syllables. Yup, still stuck in the middle of British English and American English.
see i just pronounce it ” war jester”
Close: Wis-ter-sheer
I’m just going to leave this here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOd3lwluQIw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BXKsQ2nbno
okay, I’ll leave this one nearby it, then
Bel-voir or Beaver?
English is funny that way that not only can you not tell how something is pronounced, you can’t even tell just when you have no idea how to pronounce something. At least with Celtic/Gaelic/whatever names, if you have no idea you can absolutely tell that you have no idea.
It would be quite miraculous that English became THE world language except for the fact that while many people use English words, the pronunciations, meanings and grammar can be quite different from (British) English. My favorite example is: So you speak English, British or American, don’t for a second assume that you have any idea what EU bureaucrats are saying (or more likely, writing).
Actually, would have pronounced that “Boh-cheef”, so got it half right :P
Man, I specifically remember going through middle and high school in midwest US where a recurring student in my classes was Polish. Very fun for attendance.
*Normal Name*? “Here”
*Normal Name*? “Here”
Luke, ah… “Here”
Are you sure? I’m the only Luke, and you paused, yes, it’s me.
Aside from some minor details, that was me.
It was even more amusing when the teacher was reading only last names. After three failed attempts on the first syllable: “here”.
French breton – region of Brittany in northwest France – name could be the same :
Annaig, Gwenneg , Gwilherm, Judikael, Kaourintin , Maiwenn , Roparzh , Yannick, Yezekael
my own name when spelt the way it was supposed to be spelt and not the English way it is can be spelt like Cainnech or Coinneach
The shenanigans around Gaelic spelling boils down to several dialect shifts & some invasions, and most famously, the fact that the fecking English beta-tested all their colonial clownery on us in Ireland. Starting with that classic move of, “We’re outlawing your language, you need to learn English.”
Lots of neat videos about it on YouTube.
Ils on essayé aussi de nous coloniser entre 1337 et 1453 mais il ont eu des problèmes …
On était un peu trop gros pour eux.
They also tried to colonize us between 1337 and 1453 but they had issues…
We were a little too big for them.
At the end it will be longbows vs canons – Battle of Castillon , an inverted Crecy -.
For Gaelic revenge the Bretons Knights had leaded the charge to disband the mauled English troops during this battle.
Breton language is most closely related to Cornish, another Southwestern Brittonic language.Welsh and the extinct Cumbric, both Western Brittonic languages, are more distantly related, and the Goidelic languages (Irish, Manx, Scottish Gaelic) have a slight connection due to both of their origins being from Insular Celtic.
English had borrowed about 30% of their words from my native langage,the alteration is due to their inability at foreign langages.
The English are arguably better at foreign languages than the foreigners are, based upon how well the foreign words have survived in the English form and come back into use elsewhere.
The French had to make laws to keep people from using better languages.
TBF, “We’re outlawing your language, learn X” is a classic imperialist tactic. How else would you subjugate a peoples/culture and assimilate it into your own?
Sometimes it’s not as heavy-handed or obvious, but all empires and hegemonies do it.
The best, most successful empires and hegemonies need not even apply much overt coercion to ensure assimilation most of the time. They just persuade you that speaking the right language is necessary or at least damn convenient to get the best jobs, belong in the right elites, get the best pop culture, and so on. Their armies do the hard work of crushing overt opposition and removing existing power structures that get in the way. However, their soft power is what does the hard work of assimilating conquered/influenced people in the long term and making them willing to belong. An empire or hegemony that is unable to win over the hearts and minds of its subjects, and needs to rely on overt coercion to stand, is headed for failure.
On the subject of failed empires: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_independence_days lists, amongst other things, over 50 countries who annually celebrate their independence from the (not so) United Kingdom.
“We’re outlawing your language, you need to learn English.”
Didn’t they do that to Scotland first? Or were they simultanious?
French (Normans) did it to the English first… if we are just counting the English Isles
Not exactly french is spoken at the court , but not outside… exemple calf and veal – for calf meat is from veau calf in french -.
Richard I of England was more fond of Normandy Aquitaine and Gascony and don’t know a single word of english.
English at royal court began on Edward III (1312-1377) due to hundred years war, and English royal moto since Henry V (1386-1422) is “Dieu et mon droit” it’s on an UK passeport even if I think “your mother was a hamster and your father smells of elderberries” is much more adequate.
A lot of meat is based on the French name for the animal. During the various French invasions, the English farmers raised their animals, but the French ruling class ordered the meat in French, so the English names of the meat ended up coming from the French.
English Animal – English Meat – French Animal
Cattle – Beef – Boeuf
Pig – Pork – Porc
Deer – Venison – Venaison (which is really any large wild game)
Dude. You blew my mind there. I did not know that about the meat names. Thanks for expanding my horizons today.
oh dude, there are so many words in english that are french based and vice versa. it’s kind of what happens when 2 culture keep interacting with each other for a thousand years lol
Normans did it to the Anglo-Saxons (Norman French replaces Anglo-Saxon)
Anglo-Saxons did it to the Sub-Roman-Britons (Anglo-Saxon replaces Latin)
Rome did it to the Celtic Britons (Latin replaces Common Brythonic)
Celtic Britons did it to whoever the Pre-Celtic Britons were (Common Brythonic replaces ? – possibly a Vasconic or Finno-Ugric language)
Pre-Celtic Britons did it to the Beaker Folk (? replaces possible Indo-European language)
Beaker Folk did it to the Early European Farmers
Early European Farmers did it to the Western Hunter Gatherers.
You don’t need to actively suppress a language to cause a transition in what language people speak, the Norman French, Anglo-Saxon and Latin transitions are all classic examples of “You can speak whatever language you like, but we’re going to make all the decisions in ours”.
See, I’ve always maintained that the Gaelic languages are, collectively, a prank played on the Brits by the Scots, Irish and Welsh.
English K-niggit: “You there, peasant, what does this engraving spell?” *Points to sign consisting of 7 ns, 3 ws, 4 ds, and starts with a y.*
Oppressed peasant, stifling a snicker: “Oh, that’s ‘Fred’, m’lawd.”
That’s how golf was invented.
“I know you’re lying, but I want to believe.”
– Weinersmith, Zach; “The correct pronunciation of GIF”
I am looking at the Vote Incentive and wondering how in heck her ears work?
Forget that, my brain immediately went to “balls in the corner pocket” joke!
What about his missing nipples?
I’ve said some time ago that they’re not ears, they’re not designed to funnel sound into the skull. Now that we know they’re part of her doppelgänger heritage, maybe we can come up with a better designation for them? Antennae?
We have seen the tips extend and plug into other peoples’ brains
USMC?
(now the marines want to talk to me)
SBC?
Sensual Brain Connectors.
yeah that’s it.
(at least two other s words are appropriate here…)
They’re more antennae than ears. It’s like her head has a pair of Rabbit ear antennas she can use to pick up emotions with extendable language absorbers.
Need to be careful here — Demon Core interactions can be explosive if not handled carefully
For reference: The Demon Core didn’t explode. It just kills you with radiation.
Fun fact – because of the two criticality accidents creating strong neutron poisons, it’s ultimate fate was being melted down and the material re-used in other weapons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_core#Planned_uses_and_fate_of_the_core
Yes, do not use a screwdriver to maintain separation with Dabbler…
Hey Dave.
I dont know if it is just me, but…
The link from 1204 to 1205 on page 1204 seems to be fubar.
I did some wiggly-woo to get here.
Thank you! “Wiggly-woo” is my new favorite word.
Okay but as an Irish person, gotta let you know you gave him a surname that is a firstname, and a female one at that, it’s like calling someone Steve Maria and Maria’s the surname. Or maybe Connor Margaret. That being said yeah our name spellings can be jacked so I’ll take the L where the joke’s concerned lol.
He is just going the “boy named sue” – route.
Like… Marion Robert Morrison? AKA ‘Chong Wang’
Having a surname that also can be a first name is not all that uncommon. I knew someone called Gerhart Gerhardt. Well, that is not a female name, but same principle.
Augustus John, Patrick Henry, George Lucas, Henry James, etc…
Not difficult to come up with a load of male names used as surnames (in English usage at least). I guess they originated as son-of-X identifiers. I can’t think of many female names used in the same way – the only one I could come up with is the (fictional) Patrick Jane.
My father’s given name was Howard. His mother’s surname was Howard.
On the other end of the spectrum, I used to know a woman named Pat Paul. So there.
(I’m sure there are plenty of other examples, they’re just the first two I can remember.)
Knew a boy who went by Gabby. His actual name was Gabriel. He played the trumpet hoping the world would end faster.
Shouldn’t he have played a fanfare then?
Nah, he played New Wave Jazz and made the rest of us wish it would end too.
Fanfare for the Common Man?
Fair, it’s not uncommon in england or america maybe but it’s really uncommon for Irish people with Irish names, no one going about called Saomhairle Oisín that I know. Let alone Saomhairle Saoirse, y’know? I was just pointing it out though I’m not criticising Dave for not knowing esp considering he probably just googled Irish names with crazy spellings for the joke.
Provided it is not an alias. Maybe he is a spy or even an assassin aimed at Halo?
Nah. Too that is a bit too direct for Dave.
Or is it? *shifty eyes*
I’m pretty damned confident of “spy” I’d doubt assassin (although it’s possible that in a real emergency situation he might use the threat of taking out the comic store staff to get Sydney to stand down)
Deus would pay supers enough that working as a security guard in a comic store wouldn’t even get close to being worthwhile
In American English it’s pretty common to see both male and female first names (or minor variations on them) used as surnames. For ex, I know both a Susan and a John Shannon (which a is usually a female first name here, but also sometimes male), an Alice Roger (not Rogers, that’s even more common), a family named Catherine with enough sons to make their own baseball team, and quite a few female surname-Patrick people.
I take it this is more unusual among Irish speakers?
Ok fair enough, maybe I’m totally wrong, but, when it comes to those two Irish examples…. Shannon is also the name of a river, and in the case of Patrick well the etymology is actually really interesting so please allow me to infodump about it! Essentially: Fitzpatrick is this way old Irish surname that mostly arose as an anglicised version of the Irish patronymic surname Mac Giolla Phádraig “Son of the Devotee of St. Patrick”. But then in the 16th century, as part of the process of king Henry VIII’s surrender and regrant scheme to anglicize the Irish nobility, (because there was a lot of cultural blending that had happened in the time since the english settlers first arrived in the 12th century and english interest declined in the 14th with King Richard getting deposed while he was away in Ireland and having to rush back to England only to get executed/usurped, ect.) so basically when the tudors restarted the conquest of Ireland and wanted the English colonists living there to be more well English, they made a stipulation that some members of the clan were legally obligated to render their surname as Fitz-Patrick or Fitzpatrick instead of Giolla Phádraig as part of the agreed terms with the Crown. (The Fitzpatrick surname may have also been adopted later amongst other unrelated Irish families, such as the Maguires of Fermanagh. And that’s not getting into english daughters who married Irish men for land or military support and had kids with the surname)
And like the related Kilpatrick and Mulpatrick, the Fitzpatrick surname was sometimes shortened to Patrick.
So basically Fitzpatrick and Patrick as early as the late medieval period.
This doesn’t disprove your point or prove mine at all but it’s definitely kind of interesting.
Also, just with regards to the pronunciation of his name, it’s more like “Ty-g” (the spelling on page could be misread as “Tayg”) and “Kwee-lun” – “aoí” makes a “wee” sound – with the last vowel being a schwa. Still though, good effort. Gaeilge is a nightmare for those unfamiliar with it, and sometimes still a mouth of marbles for those of us who are.
The name wasn’t DaveB’s choice, as it’s a Patreon cameo character.
The genitals have indeed been unsheathed.
Sorry, unveiled.
I mean demon just seems to be a subcategory of alien. Does it matter all that much if they come from a different planet or a different parallel universe/dimension?
Of course, the part where they translate the name for their own species into “demon” and “succubus” when speaking english has implications.
Well, in this universe the legendary memes that gave birth to the notions of ‘demon’ and ‘succubus’ just happened to be misinterpreted lore about the existence and behavior of certain kinds of aliens. As you point out, whether they come from a different planet or dimension only becomes relevant for the people that have to deal with them.
If the shoe fits and they look like ducks, walk like ducks, and quack like ducks, well the original names might well be fitting. OTOH, Earthly culture needs to make a major coping effort in that many of the traditional ideas about the supernatural seem radically wrong. Most importantly, these aliens seem entirely disconnected from any possible relationship with religion. What empowers their abilities and civilizations is a portion of the universal and impersonal energy field that empowers magic and is an analogue of the one that empowers superpowers. Aliens, supers, wizards, supernatural creatures exist, but there is no god in sight. So far, the universe seems much more secular than human relibions assumed, and magic/superpowers just a different kind of science.
The fact that Dave has never delved into how Celestials work, or how the various Churches interact with the various elemental and magical fields, doesn’t mean that there is no holy magic in the universe.
Sure, but would just be angel-like aliens that specialized thie biology and metaphysics to tap the Celestial portion of the magic field first and foremost, just like demon-like aliens do with the Infernal portion. It is entirely possible that these species sport elite members that fir the definition of godlike from our perspective. However, so far we met none that were more than worthy opponents for the most powerful supers and wizards. It is entirely possible and perhaps even likely that holy magic works in a ‘secular’, impersonal way just like the rest of the Thaumion and Superion fields. It may well be that different parts of the fields are especially in tune and answer better to different kinds of intent.
The beings that in all likelihood stand above even the most powerful aliens, supers, wizards, etc. (since they apparently shaped the energy fields those other creatures use) in all evidence so far seem vanilla Sufficiently Advanced superbeings, and nothing like the entities of Earthly religion. So far, the Grrlverse seems a rather secular kind of setting, where magic, superpowers, all the supernatural stuff, are just a different kind of science.
What he’s really saying is that there are no active Alignments, and so the active forces of Good, Evil, Law, and Chaos are all made by the living, instead of existing on their own. Holy and unholy are just names for energies of convenience, they are not ‘aligned’ to patterns of behavior.
Except that’s not how Dabbler explained it.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-814-history-demonology-101/
There are definitely “evil” astral plane beings, lower case “gods”, and they have a really negative influence on demons and other infernal realm creatures. Who otherwise would be all sweetness and light… according themselves.
but the astral energies themselves aren’t evil, they are just being given them by entities who like being in part of the astral plane where negative emotions are food, and the demons are just more food to them.
That’s ‘these entities are assholes’, not ‘these entities are representative of a tangible force of existence called EVIL.’
Nasty emotions are nasty emotions. Too-positive emotions resulting in blissful obliviousness could be considered harmful from the celestial planes, too, resulting in zoned/doped angels feeding entities who love their pleasure and joy a wee bit too much.
Makes sense, a higher dimensional life form *still curious where these establised astral being sit in the civilization scale between the type 3 and 4..celestial powers always mess up these scales*,
any who, makes sense a higher dimensional life form that feeds on certain emotions would *farm* those emotions utilizing lower dimensional beings by guiding, influencing, and pushing their societies in a way where they keep up a level of this without also wiping themselves out, a balance of raising livestock and culling what you need without killing off the whole herd.
The main concern is a matter of history. Aliens are novel, but if they’ve existed on Earth, we didn’t know about them. At some point, tho, we knew about demons – they’re all over our literature and religious writings, which was the closest thing we had to historical documents for some eras. We basically have a history with them, one which would taint the revelation that they actually exist. Aliens OTOH would have a blank slate with humans, as long as they could keep from being lumped in with demons – which there are hints that they are doing.
Note that the “x” capping each “i” instead of the usual dot is an absolutely vital diacritical mark. It would be pronounced completely differently if she’d used tiny hearts or smiley faces instead, of course.
It’s Scottish, not Irish, but I HIGHLY recommend Still Game.
I am still really unclear as a reader on the difference between “aliens from another dimension rather than outer space” and “actual demons”.
Do they in fact have anything to do with religion, God or gods, or the fate of souls after death? If yes, I don’t recall anything like that being mentioned at any point. If no, what makes them different from aliens who have visited Earth many times in the past?
It’s just Sydney being Sydney (she’s the only one allowed to know secrets, and tends to get shitty when others know them as well, even if they knew them before she did… and probably were the one who told her in the first place)
Many so-called ‘demons’ in the past were visitors from other planets
Or dimensions: you know Deemenshon traveler -> demon.
That reminds me. I really need to take a second crack at Robert Asprin’s writing. Last time I tried, I wasn’t in he right mood.
Phule’s Company is good for the first two books.
(I’m not convinced by the other 4, the second author makes something feel off about them)
He tends to keep series going long past the point of diminishing returns. Like his Myth series; First couple of books were great, and then they just kind of became pointless, having abandoned the stuff that actually made the books interesting.
Yeah, read the series in high school (and how female ‘Trolls’ were called ‘Trollopes’)
Trollops, actually (because they are quite sexy compared to the males.) And yes, her brother was called Chumley, IIRC.
That’s the Myth Adventures series, not Phule’s COmpany, btw.
Stopped reading after Pip talked (believe that was the last book at that time, not because he spoke)
Couldn’t remember how it was spelt :(
And was replying to ItsPerVECT!
Did also read “Phule’s Company”, that scene where they encounter the alien psychics (mind readers?) still stands out to me, the ones who ‘speak’ in images :)
As far as we can tell so far, there is little relationship in this universe between the demonstrable existence of aliens, magic, superpowers, and supernatural creatures, and religion, one way or another. Everything seems to be empowered by various kinds of impersonal and universal energy fields that respond to sapient intent. In all likelihood, godlike Sufficiently Advanced aliens that would warrant the g-label, do exist, but either they never got worshipped by humans, or lore from previous contacts got seriously misunderstood. Moreover, we know that souls (or at least disembodied minds) exist and magic can manipulate them. That says little about the existence and features of the afterlife.
Demons aren’t from an alternate dimension, they’re from a different planet.
They made deals with astral beings in the ancient past, but they are not themselves astral beings.
Hope this isn’t the guy in the booth. Kinda want this s***show over with.
What? No, in all likelihood the people in the booth during the aura leak event were normie redshirt guards, and in no way related to the (apparently super) mercenary guy providing security for Sydney’s shop. Parfait is going to hook up and harvest mana from him the usual, normal one-night-stand (or quickie-in-the-bathroom/warehouse) way, just a casual fling between recent (and attractive) co-workers that hit it off. Security guy and part-time sales gal sharing a drink at lunch and things unfolding from there. Except they happen to be a super and a succubus, but such things are increasingly going to be the new normal in the grrlverse, esp. for an environment like Sydney’s shop that lies in the social periphery of Archon.
Where the hell did you pull that eppileptic tree from?
The stick has been growing since the start of this arc
Well, I’m just happy that the risk of another accident was adressed in-universe. The potential desaster was just too obvious for me.
(Even if I make a reasonable guess – after 1200 pages or so – that DaveB would not write such an arc, the 4th wall has not been broken so far, so the character don’t know this. To Max, Sidney and all the others, The Creator’s Mind is unknowable – So, just like in RL ,-))
What is language if not encryption methods meant to be commonly understood?
Technically, if you mean it to be commonly understood, it’s “encoding”, not “encryption”. Think about the meaning of “cryptic”.
I know we have seen the brunette before, but for the life of me, I do not remember her name.
Olivia, Sydney and Joel’s co-worker in the comic shop. We saw her and learnt about her interesting family background (cousin/half-brother relative, due to Dad getting in a relationship with twins) in the very first updates, before Syd went to the bank and met Max. She got to be part of the group outing that Sydney and Krona organized in Decollete’s club, the one when we met Tamatha and she got kidnapped by the demon hunter, prompting the joint Archon/Twilight Council rescue.
She looks totally different from any of her previous appearances, as usual, but that’s Olivia. She was introduced on page 19, but just hasn’t appeared on all that many pages since.
So, he’s named after that line of cookware?
As expected, Tom’s army cutting a swath across Mozambique live as part of Gaitlyn’s invasion force made the existence of demons public. Like supers and aliens, the Veil is going to retire from them. I wonder how long it takes before the normalization process extends to the other supernaturals, and whether it shall happen spontaneously or at some point the Twilight Council is going to realize the Veil has gotten obsolete.
Given human history I suspect that the veil is the result of the last time humanity got wind of the existence of people who were other than baseline human. As a species we can’t even get along with other humans. I suspect that the veil would be even more necessary than ever. At this point the aliens aren’t shown to be freely roaming the Earth and aside from their idealized physique most supers wouldn’t stand out on the street. Max is the exception that tests the rule but she can take care of herself. People can deal with strangeness in the abstract. Demons on some other continent is tolerable but the average person on the street would freak right the heck on out if they met many of the members of the Twilight Council
Can I just call him Tag Californium? Cause that’s the closest I’m gonna get.
Or maybe just Core. Yeah.
Nah, Cauliflower
If you’re familiar with the Sharpe series(tv and novels),Sgt.Patrick Harper is Irish and in Sharpe’s Eagle,the character of Major Lennox(formerly of the 78th Highlanders,later of the South Essex Regiment)is Scottish…!
Celtic spelling is honestly perfectly reasonable once you understand that although the alphabet uses the latin symbols, it assigns different meaning to the letters. It’s just that unlike an Arabic or Cyrillic alphabet, it LOOKS like it sounds ‘normal’ to an English speaker.
Ex. my hometown’s name is ‘Hwlffordd’ which looks like gibberish, right? But in Cymreag, ‘w’ is an actual double-u sound, ff is a regular eff sound (a singular f is actually v), and dd denotes what in English would be th. So, translated to an English alphabet, the name is simply, ‘Huulforth’, which is piss-easy to pronounce.
Thought it was ‘Willford’, but then remembered in Welshland the double d’s are ‘th’ (grandmother was Welsh and a not-so-distant relative invented the Sealyham Terrier… weird little fuckers, they look like someone cut the legs off of a normal terrier at the knees)
Cuumreag
Ahh, interesting…
So Celtic spelling is encrypted since there is a substitution cipher built into it, right?
And someone lost the key centuries ago
Celtic languages, like Welsh, do their own thing and follow their own rules. It doesn’t help matters that we’re all a wee bit crazy too. (I’m Welsh, Irish, and Scottish, so I can say that.)
Let’s just say that the Chronicles of Prydain novel series, which is highly inspired by Welsh language, landscapes and folklore, requires a pronunciation guide.
Living close to the Severn growing up, I discovered my tv could receive both English and Welsh tv regions.
Cue lots of Snwcr, Slici a Slac, Sam Tân, and even some Voltron (that was never shown on an English station, AFAIK) being watched, because, why not?
Of course, I had to wait a few years before the tv died and was replaced with one that could do subtitles before I could actually follow the subtleties of their plotlines.
Raph: Hello.
Core (startled): Oh! Uh-
R: Do you, um, mind… if I nibble on you?
C: Um, whut.
R: You just… smell really TASTY.
C: I’m… gonna go.
She’s not THAT inexperienced. Her lines might be lame but they will WORK.
Been a while since I took Irish Gaelic, but I *think* that’s pronounced closer to “Keel-vaughn”?
My reasoning: The C can be hard or soft, depending on the surrounding “vowel” letter, and ‘a’ is broadening, so it makes it a hard C. The ‘a’ doesn’t get pronounced since it’s entire job is broadening the C, but generally ‘Aoi’ is generally ‘ee’ anyway. The ‘L’ is surrounded by “slendering’ vowels, so it should pronounced as a ‘clear’ L, rather than a ‘dark’ L, but native English speakers aren’t really equipped to know the difference, and that’s fine. “F” would usually be pronounced the same as English, except the H afterwards indicates lenition, so it’s pronounced like a V or W. It’s also “slender” because it’s surrounded by I’s on both sides but in this case, it doesn’t matter. “Onn” is just an O pronounced pretty much like “aw” followed by a “broad” N indicated by both the O, and the doubling. Broad N can just be pronounced like N from English, as can slender N. If you can hear the difference betweeen them as a native English speaker at all, then I’m impressed.
And yeah, Gaelic spellings are fun. A lot of the reason they’re so “weird” is because it’s actually useful for them to be that way. A lot of the grammar in Irish and Scots Gaelic specifically relies on mutating the *beginnings* of words, rather than the endings, and by leaving the original letters in place, even when they’re not pronounced, it’s relatively easy to tell what the uninflected word is, should you need to look it up or recall it from passive vocabulary.
Irish spelling seems weird because it solidified without some Latin letters. j, k, q, v, w, x, y, z are not used (not sure if they didn’t exist in their modern forms when they spelling solidified, or something else happened, but the sounds they represent DO exist. So they had to find alternate ways to represent them. For example, ‘bh’ makes a ‘v’ sound, and ‘bhf’ makes a ‘w’ sound.
Due to loan words, you will occasionally see the 8 “missing” letters pop up, but for the most part, the existing spellings held.
Wait till she learns about Welsh.
…
…
*ahem*
“It’s pronounced ‘Owen’, so stop making that noise like a car wooshing past you at the Grand Prix.”
— Neil Gaiman on Eoin Colfer.
Celtic words are based on the transliteration of written Gaelic to Latin by Roman scholars who never heard the words pronounced and based their transliteration on the shapes of the runes on the whatever they wrote on. At least that’s what’s passed on to people studying their religions.
Are you talking about Ogham? That… would be kinda hard to match any of it’s shapes to the Latin alphabet.
Well, runes are a german thing, right? Not related to any ancient Celtic stuff.
Was there any pre-roman Celtic writing in the British Isles other than Ogham? Not that I know of…
And as MLGS says, nobody would look at Ogham shapes and try matching them to Roman letters.
Also, I gather that the spelling rules differ greatly between Welsh, Irish, and Scottish (not to mention Breton etc.)
So that story of Roman scholars looking at transcriptions seems pretty far-fetched.
To me it seems far more likely that some Roman guy showed the locals his alphabet, and they ran with it.
Of course, missionaries often make up writing systems too, to spread their beliefs to the new guys. But there would be a historical record of that; translating the entire Bible to a new language is not a small task, and the resulting Bible would be one of the first known written works in that language. Is that the case for Irish, Scottish, Welsh, or …?
Keep getting Ogham and Funark mixed up :(
Just more proof that despite using the same alphabet, whomever taught it to the locals of many different regions was at least completely drunk, and probably high as a satellite at the same time! (Also a complete jerk)
I was going to say check out other Bretonnic languages, like Cymric, but others beat me with the Welsh reference.
Re: Vote incentive
Wow, even without his face, hiro’s abs are -that- distinctive i can peg him!
you go discount superman, you go
Except it’s Achilles. Though I suppose it’s only possible to determine that from the exclusive Patreon content.
So I have to ask, would Sydney refer to Core’s real name as ‘gibberish’ if it was something like french or spanish?
Probably?
If it looks like a dog ate a box of Scrabble pieces and then vomited it up, then yes, it looks gibberish
Hael, going back near thirty years and playing a ‘Traveller’ game on the Amiga, would just ‘face-roll’ the keyboard and running the random letters through a voice-program, and if the sound resembled a real name (and not each letter pronounced separate), it got used
it’s deeply problematic that you described names from another language like that and its not great that Sydney is mocking them either.
Especially as those names come from a language that’s been near wiped out through colonialism and oppression.
How is that relevant to whether or not a name looks like gibberish?
Because its not gibberish, its a name. In the same way Cyrillic or runes aren’t
Anything could potentially be a name. If we’re considering all possible languages and cultures, then nothing is gibberish, just unknown. If we’re only considering languages that currently exist, then some things are gibberish, and others are not, but people could easily miscategorize them because their own knowledge isn’t perfect.
But what people generally mean by ‘gibberish’ is “this doesn’t mean anything to me”, or perhaps “this doesn’t mean anything in any language I am fluent in”.
Yeah… its not great that you refer to another language as that. Especially a language that has been oppressed for generations. It’s also not great Sydney refers to it that way.
The tattoo going up his right arm and the red hair immediately brought my mind to the protagonist of the “Tricked”, “Trapped”, “Hexed”, “Hammered”, and…”Hunted”? books(cannot for the life of me remember the author’s name, so he must nameless. [obviously ignoring google]), who is a druid literally born before Christianity, whose powers(mostly) come from the Earth, channeled by way of an intricate tattoo that goes from the sole of the heel of his right foot all the way up in one continuous, unbroken link to his right hand…I cannot recall if it terminates at this palm or the back of it…
Kevin Hearne The Iron Druid series. I thought the tattoo never ended, it just twisted back on itself to make a closed loop. Back to the audio book.
Now, the real question: in the last panel, did Sydney say ‘Keltic’ or ‘Sell-tick’?
And do love Olive’s smug look in those last few panels :)
ie. Did she pronounce it right or wrong?
Because it’s a hard “C” unless you’re talking about the football team.
Yeah, that’s why was asking: most American’s (most, not all) just know the basketball team
it can be both funny and frustrating to have multiple creatures with the same name *shared due to not naming themselves but named by others…sometimes from different Earths*, Succubus, as in be funny to have these physical tantric feeding beings called Succubi, but thanks to some misunderstanding some race of psionic parasites end up being called the same thing because they feed on the same thing (only using dream manipulation..which would explain Incubus being a term in the same universe).
Although one can go a bit…overboard, I know have *here let me list my thirty something different kind of elves, most of which are not even related to each other in any natural way…I won’t*.
Its like a setting with “Oh yeah, that’s a fairy, but I’m a faerie” or *well yeah that person is a Genie but I’m a Djinn and we are both different Genii of course*
Or how some people think ‘nationality’ equals ‘ethnicity’
Like, ‘German’ is distinctly, physically, different from ‘Greek’
According to the definition of the Cambridge website it actually fits.
They define ethnicity as “a number of people or things that are put together or considered as a unit”. A nation counts as a unit.
The definition of Wikipedia also maintains this fitting of nationality in ethnicity:
An ethnicity or ethnic group is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of perceived shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Nationalism(or patriotism) is a thing.
Uh..huh…
okay,
any who,
so the idea is inspired by real life folklore and fantasy where the same name is used for a wide variety of different things that aside from often changing criteria could be argued to either be or not be related, elves, fairies, dragons, vampires, demons, nymphs, even gods, and so on.
So why not have a fantasy setting that has more than one being called the same thing, especially if multiverse and other dimensions are involved.
As a quick run-down my elves are in three general categories.
*human descended (even if they won’t admit or are aware of that, either by magic or science their ancestors became pointed eared people either with extended lives or negligible senescence. Basically based on how elves are generally represented in modern fantasy anime.
*ethereal (basically the ancient traditional kind of elves, which can be called elves, fairies, ethereals, nature gods, etc…)
*Amana descended elves (long short the descendants of the 7 Yggdrasil which were the physical manifestations of the 7 Architects of Magic, creating immortals in their images. Who either through a long life *10,000 or so years* or if the body is destroyed return via reincarnations with memories returning over time, will someday ascend as “the Ascended Elven Elders” AKA: join their fellow Amana in a higher plane. But otherwise via their descendants and regular societies don’t live much different than other elves.
*also a ton of variant tribes via intermingling, and often mixed with the other two categories in some fashion.
In short, all those tv tropes pages of *our (blank) are different* which really is any franchise. Imagine a world where the porcine Orcs and Warhammer Orcs and so on exist together, the various kinds of goblins, kobolds, and so on.
A big *well we either didn’t name ourselves, or adopted a term we found on some world they used for what was fiction or myth on their world and it just stuck.*
-you could do this with humans. Have humans encounter variant worlds of robots, talking rabbits, etc…and by some translator issue or cosmic coincidence they just happen to also be called human, or the old sci-fi joke that “human” sounds a little too close to the name of some local boogyman alien monster and the colony just goes with it, or can’t shake off the stereotypes the local connected with what was actually a homonym.
So, no one’s going to note that this strip strongly suggests that Dabbler has, once again, been keeping key intel from the team, including Max? Allow me to break it down:
Premise 1: Parfait is a succubus youngling, relatively inexperienced in wielding/using her powers.
P2: Dabbler is considerably more advanced.
P3: Parfait was able to pick out a super from the scent of his mana at a distance of several yards.
Conclusion 1: Dabbler, herself, should at least be able to mimic this feat.
Speculation 1: Dabbler may also be able to detect supers at a much longer distance, and might be skilled enough to distinguish between two supers based on their ‘manasmell’.
P4: Max has not ordered Dabbler to use such abilities in situations where it could be useful, even life-saving.
P5: Max is not an inbred, syphalitic moron.
C2: Max is unaware of this particular ability.
CFinal: Dabbler has been keeping things under wraps, for purposes of her own.
I see no way not to add this to the “Dabbler is actually a late-story villain reveal” pile.
Specualtion 1 is unfounded, as Parfait has been shown to have much longer range than Dabbler in at least one thing.
Hell, Dabbler might only have this ability at near-touch range. She has demonstrated it while having sex (“Supers are so yummy”) but nowhere else.
Do you have any examples of Premise 4? Because I can’t think of any if Dabbler’s range for this is “touch”.
Remember, though:
1) Dabbler is a half-succubus, and it’s already been pointed out a couple of times in various places that her abilities, while strong, aren’t necessarily the same or as strong as a pure succubus
2) She also has (at least, seemingly) focused more on technology (including magic-based tech) and obtaining an extremely wide range of knowledge and academics, and simply lets the succubus part come naturally. (I can’t remember if it was that she never finished succubus school or simply didn’t pay attention through parts of it)
3) By Dabbler’s own admission just a few comics ago, Parfait is *much* more naturally powerful than she is; also, Parf recently got a boost from “binding herself to Thothogoth the Archfiend”, whereas Dabbler only bound herself to “Tom, her on-again off-again HS boyfriend” (again, Dabbler’s words), and we’ve already seen that particular relationship is even now more one of convenience than anything else
So it’s probably less “Dabbler is hiding this ability” than it is “It’s naturally weaker to begin with, and she never cared enough to cultivate further”
It isn’t clear that there’s such a thing as a “half” succubus. Apparently when succubi reproduce they find male and female mates, and combine their genetic stock with a genetic/magic package that allows for wild crosses and makes you a succubus, to produce offspring that have three parents and are all succubus on top of their regular ancestry.
Yeah, it seems they are external reproducers with a dominant or parasitic genetics type trait that using either magic pods or sci-fi alchemy-magic capsules or something to combine their genetics there which while affecting the phenotypical traits *outward appearances* the succubus genetic traits are dominant.
Although they might either be able to select and sacrifice for other species traits or a co-dominant issue may occur by mixing with other parasitic genetics species. Which Dabbler may be a case of.
Dabbler has Doppleganger in her, a different species established to also take traits from a parent but be the genetically dominant form for the species. and Dabbler has her ear tentacles language mimicry power from her Doppleganger side. So either there was some loss of some succubi powers *affecting her range or potency for instance*, either inherently or intentionally as that language mimicry is a very useful trait to keep.
Dabbles herself has said she was, at best, a half if not third Succubus
There’s no such thing as a pure succubus, because there are no male succubi, so they must breed with males of other races. Parfait is 1/4 Efreet, 1/4 Djinn, which may contribute to her magical prowess, though Dabbler attributed it to simply taking more after their mother.
Tom and Thothogoth are the same person. I doubt that Dabbler binding herself to him before he rose to power has any impact on the power she receives from their bond; she was simply elaborating on the nature of their relationship.
Looks like my previous comment got eaten, so here it is again (more-or-less)
Conclusion 1 is not valid, since Dabbler has already stated that Parfait has greater range on at least one of her abilities than Dabbler does (without tech assist). We know that she can tell when recharging from someone, but that’s all (“Supers are so yummy”)
Spectulation 1 replacement: Dabbler may only be able to do this at touch range, if not only when actively recharging from them.
Premise 4 question: When have Max and Dabbler been in a situation where this could be useful, assuming it is touch or near-touch range for Dabbler?
Conclusion Final objection: Dabbler has been very open that she’s keeping some of her abilities from the team. Her teleporter tech’s first appearence makes that very clear.
There have been at least situations in which it was useful in all situations Dabbler contributed to the best of her ability.
Sydney’s recruitment: nothing detected, but tried very hard.
All encounters with SmugD’s bodyguard: Dabbler hasn’t been there, due to organizational reasons
The creation of “the list”: she has assisted ArcLight and it’s pretty big.
What’s weird is that I saw your previous comment show up in the RSS feed. This is certainly more than you wrote in the original, however, so nothing important was lost.
Parfait seems to be unusually gifted at some of the Succubus things, in the conversation with Parfait after the meeting Dabbler said that she still couldn’t affect the whole building with her lust Aura without repeaters and Parfait saying that explains some things that happened in class.
So we don’t know that Dabbler can detect supers the same way or at the same range.
Sorry, no. (I think, it would fix quite a bit about this arc!)
There is Word from DaveB on page 1201 about that. Granted, it’s ambigious whether it’s actual truth or just Dabbler’s understanding. But it leaves little doubt that neither is Dabbler a villian nor is a Face-Heel-Turn imminent.
Of course, with a long-running serial no-one knows what will happen years later, but here and now: No.
Giving up on pronouncing Gaelic names, I tend to humorously say it’s pronounced ‘Smith’. They do look like a cipher to me, but at least I know I’m wrong!
However, my naive attempt at Coilfhionn would be ‘Calvin’.
Page 782 indeed reveals the nickname “Core”.
It also has a reference that he’s from page 390, where his real name is given if I’m not misreading this.
I think DaveB’s referring to the Who’s Who on page 782, which calls him “Core / Tadgh Caoilfhionn”.
Wistah izza eastuh Lestuh.
Worcester is east of Leicester.
Massachusetts. I live in Worcester.
It would be nice to see Parfait’s illusion form every now and then. For one thing nobody would bat an eye at a fan girl claiming to be a succubus in a little cosplay outfit. It would be a funny to see Parfait shifting to a slightly different look geared toward Core specifically.
Heh, celtic cryptography.
The pronunciation of stuff like buaireas, triobloid, O’hAirmheadhaigh…
Yeah, they’re trolling everyone, probably for fun.
Looks like Parfait going try get a mid-day snack.
I take it that succubus are all little different? She looks like she has normal feet vs the Dabbler’s hoofs.
Dabbles is at least half Doppelgang(bang)er
The other three Succubae we have seen have all been pure (or at least, 100%) Succubae
Wait, isn’t Parf half (not just Gaelic words that don’t sound as they are spelt :P ) Djinn? Which explains her smokey appearance
Parfait is 1/4 Efreet, 1/4 Djinn, half succubus. Dabbler explained on page 1020 that even though the children of succubi are always succubi, they still inherit some traits from their fathers, and thus have a broad diversity in their appearance.