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There is no ToR, there is TOR.


sickirony

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I've got nothing better to do at the moment, so I figured I'd share one of my pet peeves with the SWTOR forums.

 

I keep seeing people refer to the game as ToR; however, in reality, you would never (ever) make the acronym for Star Wars: The Old Republic simply "ToR." Why, you ask? Because, when making acronym, the only letters made lower case are the articles, prepositions, and/or other insignificant words. So let's break this down a little bit:

 

Star: Neither an article nor insignificant. Here, it's functioning as a modifier for the noun "wars."

Wars: A noun. Hmmmm...

The: Oh snap. Here we have an article. What ever shall we do?

Old: Not an article. In fact, this is a very important adjective that specifies which Republic we are talking about.

Republic: The primary noun in all of this mumbo-jumbo.

 

So, in reality, we have only one article in the whole title. What does this all mean? When quickly referring to the game, we should be calling it SWtOR. But, "Professor, that looks stupid," you say.

 

"That's right, little Ferdinand. And that wouldn't be an acronym anyway because, as we discussed, acronyms form pronounceable words, like 'WoW.' Things like 'NFL' and 'SWtOR' are actually forms of initialization."

 

"But, Professor," you say again, "should we be calling it 'tOR?'"

 

"No, Ferdinand. When dealing with initializations or acronyms, the first letter will always be capitalized."

 

So there you have it, folks. It isn't ToR--it is TOR. Why do we call it the former? Well, that's probably because we are so used to saying WoW. Why wouldn't we say ToR?

 

I guess, though, if you wanted to get really creative, you could drop the "t" and call it SWOR

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There is no Dana, only Zul!

 

And what a lovely singing voice you have!

 

"I want you inside of me"

"It sounds like you got a few people in there already... go ahead.. No I cant!"

"Oh Zully you old nut.. I'm gonna count to 3 and If I dont get to talk to Dana... Theres gonna be some real trouble in this apartment I think..."

Edited by AGSThomas
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No, really I was going to say, "But Professor, this is a video game forum and no one cares about English lessons here."

 

It was all in well-intended fun.

 

HOWEVER!

 

I'll give you extra credit if you can tell me where you are missing a comma in the text quoted above!

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I've got nothing better to do at the moment, so I figured I'd share one of my pet peeves with the SWTOR forums.

 

I keep seeing people refer to the game as ToR; however, in reality, you would never (ever) make the acronym for Star Wars: The Old Republic simply "ToR." Why, you ask? Because, when making acronym, the only letters made lower case are the articles, prepositions, and/or other insignificant words. So let's break this down a little bit:

 

Star: Neither an article nor insignificant. Here, it's functioning as a modifier for the noun "wars."

Wars: A noun. Hmmmm...

The: Oh snap. Here we have an article. What ever shall we do?

Old: Not an article. In fact, this is a very important adjective that specifies which Republic we are talking about.

Republic: The primary noun in all of this mumbo-jumbo.

 

So, in reality, we have only one article in the whole title. What does this all mean? When quickly referring to the game, we should be calling it SWtOR. But, "Professor, that looks stupid," you say.

 

"That's right, little Ferdinand. And that wouldn't be an acronym anyway because, as we discussed, acronyms form pronounceable words, like 'WoW.' Things like 'NFL' and 'SWtOR' are actually forms of initialization."

 

"But, Professor," you say again, "should we be calling it 'tOR?'"

 

"No, Ferdinand. When dealing with initializations or acronyms, the first letter will always be capitalized."

 

So there you have it, folks. It isn't ToR--it is TOR. Why do we call it the former? Well, that's probably because we are so used to saying WoW. Why wouldn't we say ToR?

 

I guess, though, if you wanted to get really creative, you could drop the "t" and call it SWOR

 

I think I love you. But because of the colon in the title you'd capitalize "the" in any case, would you not?

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No, really I was going to say, "But Professor, this is a video game forum and no one cares about English lessons here."

After the "really."

 

The comma belongs after "and".

 

"But Professor, this is a video game forum, and no one cares about English lessons here."

 

The sentence above has two independent clauses.

 

this is a video game forum

no one cares about English lessons here

 

By joining them with a comma and subordinating conjunction, a complex sentence is created.

 

I compulsively hate grammar.

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No, really I was going to say, "But Professor, this is a video game forum and no one cares about English lessons here."

I'll give you extra credit if you can tell me where you are missing a comma in the text quoted above!

It goes after "But", because 'Professor' is a direct address and therefore should be surrounded by commas.

 

Seriously though, I can be a grammar Nazi at times, and I use TOR rather than SW:TOR. It's just faster.

 

Edit: You could also put a comma after "and", but you specifically said "a comma", and the first one I mentioned is more necessary as far as grammatical correctness goes.

Edited by Phishums
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AWESOME!

 

Now if only we can get the WoW kids to stop saying auction house, spells, cast, raids, etc.

 

lol .................................................. ...............

 

cares noone does : :csw_yoda: : official Joda quote

Edited by Genesizs
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It goes after "But", because 'Professor' is a direct address and therefore should be surrounded by commas.

 

Seriously though, I can be a grammar Nazi at times, and I use TOR rather than SW:TOR. It's just faster.

 

Edit: You could also put a comma after "and", but you specifically said "a comma", and the first one I mentioned is more necessary as far as grammatical correctness goes.

 

Grammatically, you are correct about setting off a direct address with commas. However, I grew up in the time of "never begin a sentence with 'and' or 'but'", and I maintain that it is still sloppy writing. In my opinion, "but" should stick to its role as a coordinating conjunction, as that is what it is best at. ;)

 

Incidentally, I lean more towards punctuation being outside quotation marks (which I believe is more common in the UK).

 

EDIT: I hate myself, and I blame this thread. I prefer my role now, where syntax deals primarily with curly braces or no curly braces.

Edited by PhoenixAshen
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