“Ehhhhhh, I didn’t like that one either. Here’s a gold for the trouble.”
“You’re down a minion and up a gold.”
That sounds awful. All right? We can say things like “you’re up a sovereign” or “you’re up a dollar” or “you’re up a crown” but since “gold” is plural and was never the name of a unit of currency, it sounds awful for the Bob to talk about “a gold.” Now if he said “here’s 1 gold for the trouble,” that would be preferable.
In conclusion, fix your and Bob’s defective word choice.
Are you sure gold was never the name of a currency? I mean, copper was. And, as far as I know, that’s the name of the currency in WoW. It’s copper, silver and gold, not sovereign, dollar or even crown (and even that was called gold crown).
Also, gold isn’t plural, it’s descriptive, so it doesn’t have a singular or plural, even if used as a noun (just like wood, copper and the likes).
I always assumed it was the shorthand for gold “coin”. It’s just that in just about all fantasy RPGs where gold/silver/copper/platinum coins are used, players (and NPCs) thend to end up saying things like “A room at the inn is 3 gold for a night”, omitting the “coins” bit altogether. It’s pretty much become universal shorthand.
As Morthasa said, gold is the name of the currency in WoW, and it’s a very common shorthand in many RPGs.
Also, if you want historical examples, while “gold” may not have been used as the name of an individual coin in English, there are examples of something exactly like this in other languages. For example, in ancient Rome, there was a type of gold coin called an aureus, which literally just means “gold” or “golden.”
Gold is best currency as it is not affected by inflation. Paper has the value only as long as we as a society believe in it.
There’s nothing to fix because there’s nothing defective about it.
You took the time to make a post about this. Wut???
Yes, however “3 gold” is plural. And if a room at the inn were 1 gold, the innkeeper shouldn’t say “a room at the inn is a gold for the night,” unless “golds” are the unit of currency.
That is exactly the point. Of course it might be completely different in other languages. And of course many games don’t bother to name the currency; which is fine, as long as they don’t say “a gold.”
Yes there is. Glad we’ve had this discussion.
You took the time to spam in this topic???
Language evolves based on need. As such if people accept using gold as a singluar for currency like what happens here than it is correct. It’s up to the majority to pick if it’s correct or not. Esp is the case of non formal English used in a game. As shown here most people accept it as correct as such the use of it in this case is correct at least for informal English (slang).
I myself see no issue with it what so ever. I do read fantasy novels a lot also and do see inn costs being a gold quite a bit it’s an accepted way of using the word within the rpg crowd as mentioned abov. If its accepted as correct by the crowd using it than it is correct. Regardless of what the individual thinks it’s the group that makes the call. It’s the same reason both colour and color are both correct.
“A gold” is shorthand for “a gold coin” in these fictional worlds. Shorthand that has been widely accepted by said worlds communities. This automatically makes it grammatically correct for the people of that world, and helps out with the fantasy world building.
This is not a historical game, it is not a game based on our world, and does not need to conform to our “rules”. And hell, that isn’t even a rule in our world either. If our currency devolved into a system of small identical discs of different metals, we would also very quickly drop the “coin”, and start calling it a gold, a silver, a copper, etc. Language conventions change as the people change. Want proof? As of March 2019, MacGyver is an official word in the Oxford Dictionary. Yes, a man’s name has been turned into a verb and you can now legitimately say that you are MacGyvering up a science project or whatever.
Seriously, check out the Oxford Dictionary sometime. It’s full of things that were once upon a time slang, shorthand, or just plain wrong, but are now perfectly legitimate and grammatically correct
I would prefer if he mixed it up a little, i.e.
“You’re up a shekel!”
“That’ll be 3 smackeroos”
“You don’t have enough samoleons!”
This is why humanity isn’t colonizing other galaxies by now.
There isn’t.
Your argument is fallacious.
Gold can be both singular and plural so Bob’s use of it is correct.
Then what should he say? What is the singular of gold?
There is. I didn’t say it was wrong, I said it sounds awful, for reasons I have outlined, and is a defective choice.
There isn’t one, which is why, as I say, Bob should say “1 gold” or phrase the line differently.
Appreciate the demagoguery, but, I stand against it and I am also a part of the community.
There is.
Gold is both singular and plural.
First, I should mention that in the case of “a gold” being shorthand for “a gold coin”, it is no different from words like, for example, sheep. It is a noun that is both plural and singular, and as such there is nothing wrong with it.
Secondly, the term “a gold” has been used in all sorts of media like games, tv and even books for decades now, yet you are literally the only person I have seen who has a problem with it. It would seem that you are in a very tiny minority, and the term “a gold” has become a widely accepted term for a fictional currency. Now, there will always be a few people objecting against the majority, whether because they truly believe in it or they are merely just rocking the boat (I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt that you aren’t the latter, though you honestly are most likely just trolling), but that does not in any way make them right.
In the case of factual points it’s fine to speak up against the facts, as long as you can actually prove the point you are trying to make. Humanity’s greatest advancements have come from people daring to go against the facts. But on a subject as fluctuating and ambiguous as language, something that is always evolving with the times, something that simply cannot be defined by facts and evidence, then no, the majority rules. As of right now, the majority accepts the usage of “a gold”, and so it is correct, even if it bothers a few people like you. We all have pet peeve words and phrases but the fact that society in general accepts those words and phrases means we can do nought but deal with it.
Not according to SuddenReal. Or me.
You are indeed. I love being called a troll when people can’t wrap their minds around the fact that anyone could possibly believe what I do; it’s a casual ad hominem approach to put the whole discussion in perspective - “this isn’t a real discussion made by a valid person, this is a joke.”
Though to be honest, and this sort of recalls Google or Microsoft, I don’t want a discussion at all. Discussion is vain and circuitous. I want Blizzard to know how I feel. I don’t give 2 gold what the hardcore players on the forum think. But unfortunately there isn’t a way to give feedback but here. So here we are debating the taste of “a gold.” No, I don’t care what others think. I just wish to share what I think, hopefully and preferably without being attacked and ridiculed for doing so.
It’s a WoW thing. Bob lives in WoW.
Mhm, picked one line out of my whole post then call me a troll. Right, guess I was correct in assuming you were a troll. If you weren’t a troll you would have moved on out of this thread, like I’m about to. You say you don’t want a discussion, you just want to say how you feel, well, you’ve done exactly that in your first post. All of your following responses to others posts were, surprise surprise, having a conversation. The only logical conclusion to your contradictory statement, you be trollin, mon