Un-dead vs. Undead nitpick

[sirkerry]

I noticed in several places (particularly the cleric turning rules) the term un-dead is used instead of undead. For some reason this bothers me.

[goodmangames]

When I first read it in an Appendix N book originally published in the 1930's, it bothered me too. Then I realized that most of the published references to "un-dead" that actually appear in Appendix N is spelled that way, with the dash. It's old-school, believe it or not.

[jmucchiello]

English has moved on. In fact just about every compound noun in English (e-mail, for example) starts out hyphenated. Then as people become accustomed to the new word, the hyphen disappears (email).

[DCCfan]

I can't spell at all so I try to use spell check all the time. I can't think of a time that it said un-dead or e-mail instead of undead/email.

Just tried it both ways and spell check accepted both spellings. I learned something new.

[Stainless]

I still write it as e-mail, but hey, I also write Internet with a capital I.

[QuentinTheTroll]

Just for interest, I believe that the term "undead" and its definition was coined by Bram Stoker.

The Dead Un-Dead and The Un-Dead were two of the titles he considered for a little book that eventually saw publication as Dracula.

Well, technically, the word "undead" has been around since the 1400s, but it always meant "alive" in the conventional sense. In other words, if something wasn't dead, it was "undead." Usually, you would use it to say something like "we aren't going to get out of this alive" this way: "we certainly won't make it out of this undead."

But Stoker was the first to apply the weird word in the way we know it: as an apellation for the walking dead. So it is a new use barely more than a century old.

It amuses me that RPG characters in quasi-medieval settings refer so frequently to the "undead" as unholy, decrepit monsters when the term, in an actual late medieval setting, would have merely been reference to a lively neighbor!

[Ravenheart87]

It amuses me that RPG characters in quasi-medieval settings refer so frequently to the "undead" as unholy, decrepit monsters when the term, in an actual late medieval setting, would have merely been reference to a lively neighbor!

Well, it's only a quasi-medieval setting. Also most of us speaks his own language when playing, not old english, common, elf, orcis, klingon or whatever language his character speaks in the game.

[QuentinTheTroll]

It amuses me that RPG characters in quasi-medieval settings refer so frequently to the "undead" as unholy, decrepit monsters when the term, in an actual late medieval setting, would have merely been reference to a lively neighbor!

Well, it's only a quasi-medieval setting. Also most of us speaks his own language when playing, not old english, common, elf, orcis, klingon or whatever language his character speaks in the game.

Amateurs.

I only judge in Anglo-Saxon, Quenya and Lapine. I expect anyone who plays with me to speak solely in Syldavian, Grammelot or any dialect of Kardashian (preferably Khloe).