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(Update) Grammar and Emotes

Khaleesi

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Hello. I would like to update an old guide I have made for another role-playing community in 2016. I have also posted a v2 version on a foreign community and addressed foreign related issues in grammar, spelling, and use of the emotes there. This is the v3 and is supposed to address issues I have seen (and things I consider to be issues) on RC-RP. I believe grammar is really important in this game, since it's a text-based one, and whenever someone cannot write something properly makes (me, at least) it feel like his role-play standards are low.

Credits: Liquicity (me), Douglas Nyswonger, Jerry Sforza, Kipps (L*-RP) / The Wilcox Organization, Public Enemy Number 1
Notes: I will be updating this guide constantly if it will be either demanded or necessary.




DICTION (ETHNIC AND FOREIGN CHARACTERS)
Jerry_Sforza said:
From the desk of Delroy Carlton Witherspoon Ribeiro Wilcox VII, Esq. (The Wilcox Organization)

As a faction primarily consisting of Negro characters and other less intelligent minorities, it is important to represent a realistic knowledge of Negro semantics and diction. However, this does not give excuse to misspell or misappropriate. All words should be spelled properly regardless of the interpretation of pronunciation. Portraying the typical speech qualities of a Negro does not give you an excuse to butcher the English language.

It also also applies to any other language, such as French, Italian, Russian, Spanish, Mandarin, Arabic and any other language you might choose to use in accordance with your character's education.

This chapter shall remind you of apostrophes: they're used to represent ownership and a missing letter in certain words. They do not have to be mixed with slang. Words like wanna or gonna are to be written without them.

CORRECT USE
'Ey, yo*, what up dog? 'S up wit' that shit, mofucka?
'Ight* nigga, cool shit though, know what I'm sayin'?

INCORRECT USE
A'yo, whaddup dawg? Sup widdhat shit, mofockah?
"Ayo" is an acceptable substitute.
Aight niggah, kool sheet dough, knawhatimsayin?
"A'ight" is an acceptable substitute.

Using more than a few worldwide common foreign words is also wrong. Bonjour, ese, pinche, cholo, chola, konichwa, spasiba, ciao are, per example, allowed. This applies to any other foreign language. Mainly, common forms of greeting, thanking, saying good bye and baseline insults are accepted. Anything else spoken in a foreign language shall be done through "(<insert language>) phrase in English" — "(Spanish) So, I met this guy. We're set now, bro. He'll bring that shit tonight."

ACCENT
Accent, way of pronunciation particular to a speaker or group of speakers, usually related to those of other nationality or ethnicity when they try to talk in English. RC-RP players mainly use /accent, which is correct. However, they sometimes use it incorrectly.

CORRECT USE
1. /accent X, where X is the accent, per example /accent British, which generates a British accent for your character whenever you type in a local IC chat. This is correct, but should be used whenever you are not aware of how to replicate the actual accent or drawl, which refers to particularities (British people use "mate" or "lad"; an American wouldn't, bare baseline example).

2. You shouldn't make use of the /accent command when you have to ability to fully portray the accent in the way you type. This is for try hard players who like taking it to the next mile — if you're good at portraying a Chicago accent, for example (listen to this guy to get a clear view of what I mean - "you know" is "y'know", "you" is "ya", he uses "so" a lot, some of the "T's" become "D's" ("Dhat guy over dhere." as he says it) / an easy representation of a French accent, also, is replacing all the "T's" of English with "D's" and get a hand of the circumflex accent (such as é), related joke: ask a French character who uses this T -> D technique what's a clock doing).

INCORRECT USE
Most common and important mistake is that you shouldn't do both of the above. You either should do /accent and type in normally, or don't use /accent and make your way and research over spelling of what accent you want to portray.

Writing wrongful forms of the said accent in /accent or emotes. It's Southern accent, not Southie accent. It's British accent, not Brit accent.

Any other representation of the use of an accent aside those presented above (such as [British accent] actually written in front of each line or something).

WOULD/SHOULD
  • Using "would" or "should" in emotes is completely wrong. Your character only does or doesn't. You also use would when you say "he'd" or "she'd", and that shouldn't be the case.

    14cdf885e6b61d2a7eaa8999c589fc98.png

ELLIPSIS
The correct form of ellipsis is three dots (…), other variations you see people using are mostly wrong. Two dot ellipsis (..) is wrong use, and isn't a thing.

CORRECT USE
Pecker Wood says: I seem to remember...

INCORRECT USE
Pecker Wood says: I seem to remember..
Pecker Wood says: I seem to remember..........


DASH
Players on RC-RP often use the dash in text to show that their character has been interrupted, or maybe got tangled in his own speech. In such situations, it's usually when people make common mistakes. A dash and ellipsis (-...) combination IS NOT A THING, and it's completely wrong.

CORRECT USE
Pecker Wood says: What ab— (ALT + numpad 0151 generates this long line)
Pecker Wood says: What ab-- (
Pecker Wood says: What about--

INCORRECT USE
Pecker Wood says: What ab-
Pecker Wood says: What ab-...
Pecker Wood says: What ab...-
Pecker Wood says: What ab-.-

*Never use one single dash, because that's used in certain terms or composed words, such as "well-being" or "on-site".

APOSTROPHES
Players on RC-RP typically use apostrophes when they want to show that the word they pronounce either has a missing letter or ownership of something. The wrong use of apostrophes comes when people try to combine them with slang. Full words like gonna or wanna don't need an apostrophe.

CORRECT USE
Pecker Wood says: He was gonna help me, but I saw him runnin' away.
Pecker Wood says: Yo! Why are you walkin' alone, homie? Get in my car.
Dianne's car is there.
Lopez' car is there.
Summers' car is there.

INCORRECT USE
Pecker Wood says: He was gonna' help me, but I saw him runnin' away.
Pecker Wood says: Yo'! Why are you walkin' alone, homie'? Get in my car.
Lopez's car is there.
Summers's car is there.
Tyrells' car is there.

*When it comes to Z and S, there's only an apostrophe at the end. Any other letter has a " 's " for ownership of something.

EMOTES (/me, /do)
Emotes are used to perform actions with your character. It shows other people what you are doing. Players make the mistake of sometimes trying to tell their story through them, which incites meta-gaming. Players also make the mistake of straying away from the third person (there never should be a "you" or "your" or "yours" in a /me, /do or any command that refers to others, such as the actions legal faction members do in /m (*You'd see red and white in your rear view window.*).

CORRECT USE
* Pecker Wood rocks back and forth on the chair. His hands can't stop shaking.
Skin Head says: What's wrong?
* Skin Head wears a suit.
* Pecker Wood has a tattoo.

INCORRECT USE
* Pecker Wood is terrified after the recent murder he was forced to commit by his friends.
* Pecker Wood is a known gangster in Montgomery.
* You would succeed. (( Pecker Wood ))
* Reactions? (( Pecker Wood ))

Important and final notes about emotes
1. In modern role-play, such verbs as "has" (possessive) or "is" (being) are accepted. This means someone doing "/me is a twenty four year old female." is a completely accepted and, honestly, preferred substitute than "/do Tara has 24 y/o.". Players shouldn't be afraid of using such actions, since having something (aka "/me has a purse.") or being (in terms of physical existence) are actual visible and existent actions. However, such actions as "thinking" (especially specifying about what in an emote) aren't accepted, because are not visible.

2. "as" is wrongfully used by players to determine an "after" they do another action in one single emote. "As" is to be used when:
  • Comparing something to another degree or anything else. ("Your car is as good as my car.")
  • Used to indicate something that happens when something else happens. This is where the mistake pops out, since practically saying "/me reaches for the bottle as he opens it and pours" means you would extend your hand to reach for the bottle, but you're opening it in the same time, which is impossible, and therefore wrong to say.

3. Both /me and /do are for the third person, just like characters should be characters. You aren't your character, and referring to someone else via. these commands in "/me would cuff you" or "/do You would succeed." is completely wrong in general and especially when more than 2 parties are involved in role-play.

4. Requesting reactions via. /do is wrong and instigates to misuse of the said command (aka /do Reactions? instigates to /do He would run which translates in /me runs, and therefore is wrong). When you perform an action against someone, you should simply state your action: "/me punches Andrew in the face.", and then give the other party about 40 to 60 or more seconds to type in a simple reaction. Note that they can simply have no reaction whatsoever (so they wouldn't write anything, it is common among newbie players who do not know what to say because they don't know English very well / they might just do an anim which would show you what would happen, such as falling in our case of punching this guy in the face), therefore you can go on with other actions and repeat the waiting period. Clogging up the chat in small and useless /do's shouldn't happen from an experienced and perhaps labelled "professional" role-player.
4.1. Use /do only when absolutely necessary to ask reactions or certain details, or whenever you are referring to an animal or an object.

5. /do is, essentially, to be used when addressing actions to or about things that cannot answer for themselves, therefore a player has to cover that up for in these situations. This means you should use /do when you would explain what would be seen around a car crash, or when referring to an object or an animal. Therefore, having descriptions in /do about your character isn't a thing (yes, this means "20 y/o || Muscular Build || Brown Hair || Blue Eyes" on /do isn't a thing). You should either use /me or /ame to state your character's description (such as "is a [age] [gender], has [insert physical details here], and also [insert other physical details]" in an /ame or a /me).




Thank you for visiting this thread. A comment would be much appreciated.
 

Adzio

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Re: Grammar and emotes v3

Paxie said:
everyone on rcrp needs to read and follow this
Rednecks especially, no need to type aids once that [Redneck Accent] (w/e) is there we get it. You talk like a spack.
 

Lee

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Re: Grammar and emotes v3

needs to be made a global announcement.

only one thing regarding the your and you're example, english do not use it different to the americans, the syntax is universal. your is possessive. "your house" "your ball". you're(you are) is used to show the subject doing something, or a state of being. "you're running" "you're happy".
 

Khaleesi

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Re: Grammar and emotes v3

Lee said:
only one thing regarding the your and you're example, english do not use it different to the americans, the syntax is universal. your is possessive. "your house" "your ball". you're(you are) is used to show the subject doing something, or a state of being. "you're running" "you're happy".
I've seen a bunch of them type in "your" instead of "you're" just because the spelling is similar. I believe I made it clear how that's supposed to be used in context.

or often type "your" for "you're (you are)
tl;dr i think it's common sense your is possessive and you're is an auxiliary verb



Bottom line, I'm not trying to give out English lessons, but I'm only trying to give some of the players an insight of what they should do IG, especially if they wanna go around as good role-players.
 

Lee

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Re: Grammar and emotes v3

Khaleesi said:
I've seen a bunch of them type in "your" instead of "you're" just because the spelling is similar. I believe I made it clear how that's supposed to be used in context.

or often type "your" for "you're (you are)
tl;dr i think it's common sense your is possessive and you're is an auxiliary verb



Bottom line, I'm not trying to give out English lessons, but I'm only trying to give some of the players an insight of what they should do IG, especially if they wanna go around as good role-players.

i just dont see how typing your or you're differentiates you from being british or american... anyone who speaks english is able to make the mistake of using the wrong form.

thats the only problem i have with the guide though, aside from that its good, definitely needed by a majority of the server.
 

iLegit

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Re: Grammar and emotes v3

Reminds me a lot of this. Strange... Was a good read though.
EDIT: I just saw that the poster of the other guide wrote your name in the credits. Well done.
 

John Kiberly

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Re: Grammar and emotes v3

Nice tutorial, I will keep that information about "as" and "after" in my mind not to make the same mistakes again :cap:
 

Khaleesi

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Re: Grammar and emotes v3

iLegit said:
Reminds me a lot of this. Strange... Was a good read though.
EDIT: I just saw that the poster of the other guide wrote your name in the credits. Well done.

I didn't realize someone posted my guide already, lol. If you compare them, I put a little effort to explain common mistakes the RC-RP playerbase struggles with (such as specifically narrowing down the way slang should be used, the fact that -.. ..- and whatever derives from that isn't a thing at all, and some explanation concerning emotes). That, right there, was done for L*-RP only. On another note, though, thanks for linking me the topic — I forgot about Douglas Nyswonger in the credits list.
 
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