Ideal event

[Nancy Bradford-Reid]

><n.b-reid at mail.utexas.edu (Nancy Bradford-Reid)>
>>>Farspeaker list/Domesdaylist/whatever you call it.
>>>        In period, it was often a common thing to keep lists of the populace
>>>        in a village/ward/town etc, in order to determine who was elegable to
>>>        vote where, who hadn't served in offices, who lived where.
>>*****And, I believe, Domesday Boke was the proper term for it.*******
>
>I may be mistaken, but I seem to recall that the "Domesday Boke" was
>a specific compilation, published once (in 1089 or something) and had
>more in common with the national census than it did with the telephone
>directory.

True, however, it's still a good enough period name, and the one we
(personally) have is used for many more things than getting phone numbers,
but that's beside the point.
>
>>*****Even "toll booth"  is better than "troll booth."
>>So I guess I'm in agreement with you, Diarmuit.
>
>At least as far as that goes, ma'am :).
>
>The question is, why do we call them by these silly jargon terms?

Many of them come down to us from the earliest days of the SCA.
"Autocrat," for instance.  I believe it was Marion Zimmer Bradley's brother
(someone correct me, if I'm wrong on the name) was filling out a form to
reserve a park for the second ever SCA event and was asked for his "title"
in the organization and he put "autocrat."  Many of the cutesie terms like
dragon, farspeaker, troll, elf (for answering machine), smalls, etc. come
from a time when the SCA was much more fantasy oriented than it is now.
Many of the older names in the SCA would never get past local herlds, let
alone Laurel, now days.
>
>It may well be that "Autocrat" is the best of a bad lot, as terms go
>(though I am not sure yet), but I would really prefer people (including me)
>think more about the other possibilities before just swallowing a "second-
>best" modernism, or fantasy thing as a "tradition".
>

Anytime you have an opportunity to use the correct (or more correct) term,
do so.  Don't use the ones you don't like with newcomers (newbies, aaah,
there's another one!), use the more period term.  Correct your close
friends, if you feel you can.  Eventually, we will change the jargon.  I'm
already starting tohear fewer and fewer people refer to non-SCA as
"mundanes."

>"Mihi Satis Apparet Propter     Diarmuit Ui Dhuinn


Catherine

Nan Bradford-Reid        |HL Catherine Harwell, CIM, AST
The Department of English|Barony of Bryn Gwlad, Kingdom of Ansteorra
The University of Texas  |~Simplicitas sum Venustas~
512-471-4991             |Argent, on a fret vert, a rose gules,
n.b-reid at mail.utexas.edu |barbed and seeded or.