# What is a "gish"?



## Ahnehnois (Sep 10, 2013)

Alright, let's see what the general understanding of this word is.


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## Starfox (Sep 10, 2013)

Both #1 and #2, but I still answered #2.


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## UngainlyTitan (Sep 10, 2013)

never like the term though and only really ever heard of it from the 4e material. 
Of course as some with very litle time for the great Wheel anyway I never bothered much with the githyanki either.


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## Umbran (Sep 10, 2013)

It is either githyanki-specific, or the sound made when the gods trod upon the person misusing a canon term


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## Savage Wombat (Sep 10, 2013)

Just because the OED defines "literally" as "figuratively" doesn't mean it's literally true.


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## (Psi)SeveredHead (Sep 10, 2013)

#2. It was originally a githyanki term, but it's been copied and became a Common word in the Prime Material Plane/natural world. It's a loanword, like "loot", which I believe is Hindi in origin but has also become a "Common" word.


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## Ahnehnois (Sep 10, 2013)

Starfox said:


> Both #1 and #2, but I still answered #2.



#2 is inclusive of #1, so I kept the poll options separate. I doubt that anyone uses the term for general fighter/mages, but _not_ githyanki.


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## Umbran (Sep 10, 2013)

(Psi)SeveredHead said:


> #2. It was originally a githyanki term, but it's been copied and became a Common word in the Prime Material Plane/natural world. It's a loanword, like "loot", which I believe is Hindi in origin but has also become a "Common" word.




I have never seen it used as a general in-game term.  People in a tavern in the game world don't say, "Gee, that gish who walked by was an idiot," or anything.  I've only seen it used by players outside the game (as in, "I want to optimize my gish, should I take spell X or feat Y...")


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## Samloyal23 (Sep 10, 2013)

Someone needs to really expand the githyanki tongue, give it the full Klingon treatment...


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## (Psi)SeveredHead (Sep 10, 2013)

Umbran said:


> I have never seen it used as a general in-game term.  People in a tavern in the game world don't say, "Gee, that gish who walked by was an idiot," or anything.  I've only seen it used by players outside the game (as in, "I want to optimize my gish, should I take spell X or feat Y...")




I figure "gish" is a better in-universe term than "fighter/mage". While it's metagamey, fighter/mage is even more metagamey. It's a term I heard used in-game in the last Planescape I did, a few years ago. (Pity it only lasted three sessions.)


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## Raith5 (Sep 10, 2013)

Definitely githyanki specific for me. I really dont like the use of gish for general fighter- mages. However, I am not sure if there is any more support for other terms like swordmage etc. I prefer the term arcane warrior FWIW.


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## Serendipity (Sep 10, 2013)

To me, it's a Smashing Pumpkins album.  I've never encountered the term anywhere but the internets.


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## Olgar Shiverstone (Sep 10, 2013)

NI!!!

I refuse to acknowledge any use but #1 regardless of how the poll turns out.


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## TwoSix (Sep 10, 2013)

Umbran said:


> I have never seen it used as a general in-game term.  People in a tavern in the game world don't say, "Gee, that gish who walked by was an idiot," or anything.  I've only seen it used by players outside the game (as in, "I want to optimize my gish, should I take spell X or feat Y...")



Wait, wait, wait.  People think we're talking about in-game use?  I assumed this discussion was purely about out-of-game use.  I don't use the term "gish" in game at all, no more than I use the term "fighter-mage."


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## Remathilis (Sep 10, 2013)

A berserk button for grognards.


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## Ahnehnois (Sep 11, 2013)

(Psi)SeveredHead said:


> I figure "gish" is a better in-universe term than "fighter/mage".



Personally, I rather like Pathfinder's term: "magus".


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## (Psi)SeveredHead (Sep 11, 2013)

I like the magus as a class, but in-universe, it's easy to mistake a magus for an eldritch/knight or other type of ... "gish".  It's a bit like calling a sorcerer a "mage"; close but not exact.


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## Ahnehnois (Sep 11, 2013)

(Psi)SeveredHead said:


> I like the magus as a class, but in-universe, it's easy to mistake a magus for an eldritch/knight or other type of ... "gish".  It's a bit like calling a sorcerer a "mage"; close but not exact.



True. But there really isn't an archetype for the fighting/magic types. The character concept is pretty much a D&D-ism, which means whatever word you use for it is pretty much a neologism.

I just think the term "magus", while vague, is a little less goofy.


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## (Psi)SeveredHead (Sep 11, 2013)

I'm afraid we're turning this into a 2-person thread, but to me, magus is just another way of saying wizard, an old-fashioned term.

They're not common, but I've seen "magic knights" and the like in quite a few non-D&D settings, usually anime or Japanese RPGs, but also physical adepts in Shadowrun.


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## Henry (Sep 11, 2013)

Blademage, Swordmage, Magus, Martial Arcanists -- anything but "gish". That's one of those "too silly to live" words. Might as well talk about using your toon to spam mad kites on those phat l00t dropperz.

Oh, and while you're at it, cut down that danged hippy-hop music and git offa my lawn!


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## Mark CMG (Sep 11, 2013)




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## tuxgeo (Sep 11, 2013)

"Gish" is the next new thing after "Fish." 

(Okay, where did that "rimshot" smilie get hidden this time?)


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## Scrivener of Doom (Sep 11, 2013)

Personally, I would only use it as a specific githyanki term but I am hardly offended when I see it used on messageboards as shorthand for fighter/wizard combinations. 

My pedantry only extends to the blatant misuse of the apostrophe (especially for plural nouns), the inability of game publishers to correctly use _parlay_ and _parley_ and the American use of _insure_ instead of _ensure_. That last one just bothers me inordinately.


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## Ahnehnois (Sep 11, 2013)

(Psi)SeveredHead said:


> I'm afraid we're turning this into a 2-person thread, but to me, magus is just another way of saying wizard, an old-fashioned term.



AFAIC, wizard, sorcerer, warlock, mage, necromancer, enchanter, and a variety of other terms are virtually interchangeable in common usage. D&D has a way of making them very specific. To me, magus is simply one good variant that hasn't been taken yet.

The upside to me is that at least it sounds like a word in the English language, whereas "gish" sounds like "gith".



Henry said:


> Oh, and while you're at it, cut down that danged hippy-hop music and git offa my lawn!



Personally, I see the "gish" term (and the githyanki and githzerai in general) as being 2e relics.


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## DEFCON 1 (Sep 11, 2013)

Ahnehnois said:


> AFAIC, wizard, sorcerer, warlock, mage, necromancer, enchanter, and a variety of other terms are virtually interchangeable in common usage. D&D has a way of making them very specific. To me, magus is simply one good variant that hasn't been taken yet.




I have also always preferred that they come up with a specific term to describe the fighter/wizard combo that was not just a compound word like 'swordmage' or 'eldritch knight'.  Over time, I wish that 'mage' or 'sorcerer' might've become that term... but they've both now been used in other forms and are off the table.

If indeed Pathfinder has decided to use 'magus' as the class name for a weapon-wielding spellcaster... I find that much more appealing that using a made-up word like 'gish'.


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## TwoSix (Sep 11, 2013)

Scrivener of Doom said:


> My pedantry only extends to the blatant misuse of the apostrophe (especially for plural nouns), the inability of game publishers to correctly use _parlay_ and _parley_ and the American use of _insure_ instead of _ensure_. That last one just bothers me inordinately.



And Oxford commas.  Stop dropping them!



Ahnehnois said:


> The upside to me is that at least it sounds like a word in the English language, whereas "gish" sounds like "gith".



The true problem with "gish" is that it's too close phonetically to "giff", the gun-wielding British Empire knockoff humanoid hippos that have a lock on the title of "best race ever."


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## Vyvyan Basterd (Sep 11, 2013)

Language grows and changes whether people like it or not. What started as a specific term for githyanki has grown into a larger meaning. I voted #2.


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## delericho (Sep 11, 2013)

Honestly, the only time I've heard the term "gish" is right here. Apparently it is _technically_ the proper term for a Githyanki Fighter/Wizard, but it seems to have come to mean any Fighter/Wizard - one of those technical inaccuracies that has entered common usage. (Well, as common as you get when you're talking about an obscure made-up word from a game familiar to a small subset of the population.) 



Ahnehnois said:


> Personally, I rather like Pathfinder's term: "magus".




Nah. Magus is the singular of magi, the wise men of Old Testament fame*. Better to use a made-up word - the connotations of the real-world one are wrong.

* And other sources, of course - I'm not making any claims of exclusivity here!


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## Savage Wombat (Sep 11, 2013)

Vyvyan Basterd said:


> Language grows and changes whether people like it or not. What started as a specific term for githyanki has grown into a larger meaning. I voted #2.




Prescriptive language is just as valid a viewpoint as descriptive.


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## Vyvyan Basterd (Sep 11, 2013)

Savage Wombat said:


> Prescriptive language is just as valid a viewpoint as descriptive.




Never said it wasn't, in fact that would be the 'or not' in my response. IME, I don't see the proponents of prescriptive language being very successful in their endeavors, especially within the English Language. As to how that applies to made up gaming terms, I don't really care. I was just giving the reason why I voted the way I did.


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## Jackinthegreen (Sep 11, 2013)

I first encountered the word "gish" on the BG forums.  I could tell right off the usage there was a fighter/mage type, but I wanted to know the history of it so I asked around a bit and found out it started with describing githyanki specifically.

I voted #2 because I find it a quick and easy term to use that almost everyone in the forum I most frequent (BG's successor, minmaxboards) uses to mean a general fighter/magic or psionic-user.  That is mostly 3E and 4E gaming, though, so it's somewhat understandable that they use that definition since the LA on githyanki make them more difficult to use as characters in many cases.  It's a term that works quite well for that subset of D&D gamers.  For people who prefer 1st and 2nd editions, it probably won't work the same way since the rules and feel of the game are quite different.


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## Starfox (Sep 11, 2013)

delericho said:


> Magus is the singular of magi, the wise men of Old Testament fame*.
> 
> * And other sources, of course - I'm not making any claims of exclusivity here!




Magi were originally the clerics of Zoroastrianism, the Persian religion of antiquity up to the Muslim conquest. When the bible was written, there was nothing strange about this term, tough it was perhaps a bit exotic in the roman empire. Remember that the conquests of Alexander the Great and the period of Hellenism that followed brought Persia much closer to the west culturally in the period just before roman ascendancy. It was only later, when Zoroastrianism was all but extinct, that it gained its present meaning. 

So what was once a Persian word for cleric became a generic term for magician in the west... Much like Gish was a specific class among the Githyanki and became the generic term for a fighter/magic-user. ^^


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## TerraDave (Sep 11, 2013)

'gish' was introduced in the original Fiend Folio as a 4th level fighter 4th level magic user (in a little table, so there was no descriptive text beyond that). The term was generalized, including, sadly, by some of the wotcs themselves.

Obviously the F/MU concept did not originate with the Githyanki in D&D. It originated with the elf.


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## Kobold Stew (Sep 11, 2013)

delericho said:


> Nah. Magus is the singular of magi, the wise men of Old Testament fame*.




New Testament!



Starfox said:


> Magi were originally the clerics of Zoroastrianism, the Persian religion of antiquity up to the Muslim conquest. When the bible was written, there was nothing strange about this term, tough it was perhaps a bit exotic in the roman empire. Remember that the conquests of Alexander the Great and the period of Hellenism that followed brought Persia much closer to the west culturally in the period just before roman ascendancy. It was only later, when Zoroastrianism was all but extinct, that it gained its present meaning.




Yes -- the term is also transferred to a number of other wonder-workers in the first and second centuries CE (in the Roman East) as the specific application to Zoroastrians gets generalized by a population that doesn't care about the distinction and needs a helpful general term. 

So it's a pretty good parallel for this discussion.


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## Balesir (Sep 11, 2013)

Vyvyan Basterd said:


> As to how that applies to made up gaming terms, I don't really care. I was just giving the reason why I voted the way I did.



You might want to make that "D&D terms"; Magus has been used for many years in Ars Magica to mean a full member of the Order of Hermes.


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## am181d (Sep 11, 2013)

I think the word you're looking for is "Jedi".


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## Tequila Sunrise (Sep 11, 2013)

TwoSix said:


> Wait, wait, wait. People think we're talking about in-game use? I assumed this discussion was purely about out-of-game use. I don't use the term "gish" in game at all, no more than I use the term "fighter-mage."



Ditto. I've never used gith as a DM, never encountered them as a player, and I've never heard 'gish' outside of the interwebs.



Ahnehnois said:


> I just think the term "magus", while vague, is a little less goofy.



That term really misled me, until I actually looked at the PF srd. As (Psi)SeveredHead says, 'magus' sounds like another way of saying 'wizard,' so I had assumed the class was some kind of full arcane caster.

(Maybe one that finally breaks through the silly arcane/divine divide? Nope, too much to hope for. )


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## Vyvyan Basterd (Sep 11, 2013)

Balesir said:


> You might want to make that "D&D terms"; Magus has been used for many years in Ars Magica to mean a full member of the Order of Hermes.




I was commenting on Gish, not Magus. But "D&D terms" would probably apply there as well.


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## delericho (Sep 11, 2013)

Kobold Stew said:


> New Testament!




Oops.


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## Warbringer (Sep 11, 2013)

Long before the term Gish made its migration from Githyanki specific to a generalized term we all referred to the concept as a f-mu.

I still think Githyanki when I hear the term


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## Weather Report (Sep 11, 2013)

TerraDave said:


> 'gish' was introduced in the original Fiend Folio as a 4th level fighter 4th level magic user (in a little table, so there was no descriptive text beyond that). The term was generalized, including, sadly, by some of the wotcs themselves.
> 
> Obviously the F/MU concept did not originate with the Githyanki in D&D. It originated with the elf.




Yes, I voted 1, never heard Gish applied to Fighter/Mages until the Wotc Boards, needless to say I think it is superbly lame to use the name of a specific order (they also have antipaladins) of CE Astral pirates to describe any Fighter/Mage type, as you say, the original "Gish" is the Basic "Elf", so we might as well call any Fighter/Mage type "Elf". more legacy.


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## TwoSix (Sep 11, 2013)

Weather Report said:


> Yes, I voted 1, never heard Gish applied to Fighter/Mages until the Wotc Boards, needless to say I think it is superbly lame to use the name of a specific order (they also have antipaladins) of CE Astral pirates to describe any Fighter/Mage type, as you say, the original "Gish" is the Basic "Elf", so we might as well call any Fighter/Mage type "Elf". more legacy.



I wouldn't be surprised if the preference is simply a matter of exposure.  I first saw the term on the WotC CharOp board, and didn't realize it originated as a Githyanki term until much later.  The fact that I've never liked either gith race doesn't make me want to insist on the focused term either.


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## Weather Report (Sep 11, 2013)

TwoSix said:


> I wouldn't be surprised if the preference is simply a matter of exposure.  I first saw the term on the WotC CharOp board, and didn't realize it originated as a Githyanki term until much later.  The fact that I've never liked either gith race doesn't make me want to insist on the focused term either.




Because you don't dig the Gith races does not mean it's a focused term, Gish are an order of Githyanki, that is all, this cheesy bastardisation is crap.

Just like Companion of the Dead should not be used for non-gnomes.


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## TwoSix (Sep 11, 2013)

Weather Report said:


> Because you don't dig the Gith races does not mean it's a focused term, Gish are an order of Githyanki, that is all, this cheesy bastardisation is crap.
> 
> Just like Companion of the Dead should not be used for non-gnomes.



No matter how many times you assert that your beliefs are true, people will continue to use the term in the manner to which they are accustomed.  I'm not quite sure why it causes such consternation.


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## Weather Report (Sep 11, 2013)

TwoSix said:


> No matter how many times you assert that your beliefs are true, people will continue to use the term in the manner to which they are accustomed.




Accustomed to ignorance is no excuse.

And Gish being CE Githyanki Fighter/Mages is not "truth" (save your "truths"), but fact.


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## Vyvyan Basterd (Sep 11, 2013)

TwoSix said:


> No matter how many times you assert that your beliefs are true, people will continue to use the term in the manner to which they are accustomed.  I'm not quite sure why it causes such consternation.




TOP TEN REASONS IT CAUSES HIM CONSTERNATION:

10) Because he'd rather we all still speak the proto-language from the dawn of our species.

9) Because his DM has always had a "say no" attitude and he wants things his way for once.

8) One word: Constipation.

7) Because he lacks the context that when a player talks about building a character that he is not specifically building a 4th level Fighter/4th level Wizard githyanki.

6) Because his DM's "say no" attitude only applied to him.

5) Because he is a gith agent from the future and doesn't want any confusion when the invasion starts.

4) Because he created the internet.

3) Because gish is one vowel removed from grandma-unfriendly language.

2) Because there's a silver sword aimed at his spine as we speak.

1) Becasue no one bashes his hometown Galena Fighting Gishs!


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## TwoSix (Sep 11, 2013)

Weather Report said:


> Accustomed to ignorance is no excuse.
> 
> And Gish being CE Githyanki Fighter/Mages is not "truth" (save your "truths"), but fact.



I agree that it is a fact that the word "gish" originates as a term used for CE Githyanki Fighter/Mages. (Although I am taking your word for it, as I've never read the 1E Fiend Folio).

However, I still continue to use it primarily as generic jargon.  (I would argue that in a generic form, "gish" is jargon, as its used in a technical sense by a subgroup, that of character builders and optimizers.)

So I'm not ignorant.  I use it because its an acceptable term in the community in which I operate to communicate an idea for which there is not a more succinct phrasing.


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## Weather Report (Sep 11, 2013)

Vyvyan Basterd said:


> TOP TEN REASONS IT CAUSES HIM CONSTERNATION:
> 
> 10) Because he'd rather we all still speak the proto-language from the dawn of our species.
> 
> ...





...excuse me..."He"...I will have you know I am a scorching hot hermaphrodite!


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## JRRNeiklot (Sep 11, 2013)

Sometimes when a child is learning to speak, he will point at a cow and say "dog."  Now, you can pat him on the head and call him a good boy, and he'll be calling cows dogs when he's 40, or you can call him out on it and teach him what a cow is.  But no matter how many children call a cow a dog, it remains a cow.


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## Savage Wombat (Sep 11, 2013)

People who insist on using "gish" have no right to complain when I reference TVTropes then.


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## DEFCON 1 (Sep 11, 2013)

You know the real reason why I think 'gish' doesn't gain traction with a lot of people to be the name of the fighter/wizard comboclass?  It's not that it's supposed to be specific to the githyanki... it's really just because it's kind of a dumb looking and dumb sounding word.

'Gish' is like a bad Star Wars race name, not a cool class identifier.


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## TwoSix (Sep 11, 2013)

JRRNeiklot said:


> But no matter how many children call a cow a dog, it remains a cow.



If enough children (say, the majority) call the mooing ungulate that provides milk a "dog", than that becomes what the word "dog" means, and the use of "dog" as a word for the barking domesticated canine becomes an amusing anachronism found in old books.


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## Morrus (Sep 11, 2013)

JRRNeiklot said:


> But no matter how many children call a cow a dog, it remains a cow.




No, it becomes called a dog.  The language changes.  The animal doesn't transform.


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## Vyvyan Basterd (Sep 11, 2013)

Weather Report said:


> ...excuse me..."He"...I will have you know I am a scorching hot hermaphrodite!




Then you and I should par-tay! (Oh no! Now someone will smack me for using party as a verb!  )



JRRNeiklot said:


> Sometimes when a child is learning to speak, he will point at a cow and say "dog."  Now, you can pat him on the head and call him a good boy, and he'll be calling cows dogs when he's 40, or you can call him out on it and teach him what a cow is.




That is an example of someone not understanding the commonly used term. People that started using the term gish new full well what it meant and applied it to any Fighter/Wizard build. Apples and Oranges. Although continuing to teach people what the origin of the term was is great practice. I understand many less commonly used words when I read because I know their Latin roots.


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## Balesir (Sep 11, 2013)

JRRNeiklot said:


> Sometimes when a child is learning to speak, he will point at a cow and say "dog."  Now, you can pat him on the head and call him a good boy, and he'll be calling cows dogs when he's 40, or you can call him out on it and teach him what a cow is.  But no matter how many children call a cow a dog, it remains a cow.



I agree, the consequences would be unimaginable. Someone could just start calling cows something that sounds like gish - "vash", for instance. Before you know it, you'd have hundreds, thousands or even millions of people erroneously calling cows "vashes".

Wait a minute...


Note to Francophones: I know I spelled it wrong. I'm sorry, but it wouldn't look like "gish" if I spelled it properly, would it?


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## Ahnehnois (Sep 11, 2013)

I don't think there's any question that language can change over time and is defined by words that are used in practice, not just in a dictionary. I do not, however, think that children are usually the arbiters of these things.

The thread question is not whether change is possible, it is more whether that has happened in this particular case.

Personally, my belief is still that most rpg players out there have never heard the word (obviously, ENWorld selects for certain players). So this poll is never really going to address that. I guess what this poll tells us is that ENWorld is pretty split on whether the specific or general usage is recognized.


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## Umbran (Sep 11, 2013)

Do remember that in either form, "gish" isn't a "commonly used term".  It is jargon - specialized language, often created by technical specialists to discuss the subject.

Language drift happens, sure.  But failure to maintain your jargon, or willfully bastardizing it, makes it difficult to have your technical conversations.  You willfully choose to misuse jargon, the other technical specialists have every right to give you the hairy eyeball for it, because you're willfully making communication annoying.

Plus, I have to agree with Defcon 1, above.  "Gish" (like "blog") is a stupid sounding word.


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## Morrus (Sep 11, 2013)

Well, it's slang; gaming slang, at that. And slang is the most morphable of language elements.  Just look at your speech vs. that of an 18 year old.  It's not willful; it just happens.


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## TwoSix (Sep 11, 2013)

Umbran said:


> Language drift happens, sure.  But failure to maintain your jargon, or willfully bastardizing it, makes it difficult to have your technical conversations.  You willfully choose to misuse jargon, the other technical specialists have every right to give you the hairy eyeball for it, because you're willfully making communication annoying.



True, but it isn't as if this is a hypothetical usage.  "Gish" has been used in the generic manner for close to a decade, by my own observation.  Google gish site:www.enworld.org, or some other sites with a bigger build/optimization forum like giantitp.com or minmaxboards.com or brilliantgameologists.com, and you'll see just how traction it has.


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## Herschel (Sep 11, 2013)

Umbran said:


> It is either githyanki-specific, or the sound made when the gods trod upon the person misusing a canon term




Amen!


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## Umbran (Sep 11, 2013)

TwoSix said:


> ... you'll see just how traction it has.




So?  I turn to my favorite pundit, Opus the Penguin, who after an anecdote about penguins watching jets fly over the Falkland Islands opined, "If a million people do a stupid thing, it is still a stupid thing."


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## Ahnehnois (Sep 11, 2013)

TwoSix said:


> True, but it isn't as if this is a hypothetical usage.  "Gish" has been used in the generic manner for close to a decade, by my own observation.  Google gish site:www.enworld.org, or some other sites with a bigger build/optimization forum like giantitp.com or minmaxboards.com or brilliantgameologists.com, and you'll see just how traction it has.



All true, but if you're not on those charop boards, it might very well be a hypothetical usage.


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## Tequila Sunrise (Sep 11, 2013)

DEFCON 1 said:


> 'Gish' is like a bad Star Wars race name, not a cool class identifier.



I couldn't agree more, it sounds downright moronic. Maybe that's why I never cared for the 'yankis.

Still, I hear 'gish' and I think 'character who can swing a sword and sling spells passably well.' Whereas if I hear something like 'mage knight,' 'eldritch warrior' or whatever, I immediately begin trying to remember some prestige class with that name. Weird.


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## Savage Wombat (Sep 11, 2013)

Maybe we need a different sample group.  Maybe there's a fighting wizard type on League of Legends - do they use the word "gish"?


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## Starfox (Sep 11, 2013)

First time I saw the word was in Dungeon, used in an editorial speaking about fighter/magic-users. Only later was the origin of the word clear to me. Sure I did have the fiend folio, but Githyanki never seemed like a monster I needed to get overly familiar with.

From that PoV, the gith use of the word is the oddity.


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## Tequila Sunrise (Sep 11, 2013)

Umbran said:


> So?  I turn to my favorite pundit, Opus the Penguin, who after an anecdote about penguins watching jets fly over the Falkland Islands opined, "If a million people do a stupid thing, it is still a stupid thing."



I'm honestly amazed at how much hate the generalized meaning of gish is getting.

Why don't phrases like 'I could care less' and terms like 'near miss' get this much hate? They certainly deserve it!


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## Savage Wombat (Sep 11, 2013)

I'll bet if you start a thread on "I could care less" you'll get some passionate hatred.


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## Umbran (Sep 11, 2013)

Tequila Sunrise said:


> I'm honestly amazed at how much hate the generalized meaning of gish is getting.




Good.  A solid dose of amazement now and then helps us keep perspective on our universe 



> Why don't phrases like 'I could care less' and terms like 'near miss' get this much hate? They certainly deserve it!




"Near miss" makes sense to me as "a miss that was still near the target."  However, "I could care less," ranks right up there with the not-literal, "literally," in my disdain.  However, since this is a gaming board, those don't come up that often, and certainly not as the subject of threads where people are actively asking what our opinions of them may be.


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## Henry (Sep 12, 2013)

Umbran said:


> Good.  A solid dose of amazement now and then helps us keep perspective on our universe
> 
> 
> 
> "Near miss" makes sense to me as "a miss that was still near the target."  However, "I could care less," ranks right up there with the not-literal, "literally," in my disdain.  However, since this is a gaming board, those don't come up that often, and certainly not as the subject of threads where people are actively asking what our opinions of them may be.




I agree - this talk of "gish" as a generic term literally makes my blood boil.  When i'm dead and buried, I won't care what it's called; until then I'll keep pointing and snickering when it's used, because it looks silly. I've never used it with githyanki either, because of how "weak" the word sounds to my ear. 

It's like hearing the next Sith Lord in the new Star Wars movie will be called "Darth Flabdoodle" - he could murder a hundred Jedi babies, and burn Leia at the stake, and I'd still call it a stupid name for a villain.


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## Ahnehnois (Sep 12, 2013)

De gustibus non est disputandum


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## Dwimmerlied (Sep 12, 2013)

It seems to be part of a naturally evolving gaming culture and language, albiet one that I believe originated with the optimization community. In that it was kind of natural, I kinda like it. It's not moronic to use it, its just a word. Some people seem to argue that its not cool to use it "cause thats the rules"...

Discussing the real meaning of cows and dogs may or may not have any real validity, but implying through it that using the term is incorrect because some people don't like it probably doesn't


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## DEFCON 1 (Sep 12, 2013)

Personally... I think the best way to go with it is to just continue evolving the Sorcerer in the direction of the spell channeling weapon-user.  The playtest packet in August of 2012 had the Sorcerer with the draconic bloodline being a warrior/magician combo... and I think keeping the Sorcerer going that way makes all the sense in the world.

Yeah, I know a few people might want to keep the Sorcerer as basically a spellslinger wizard-clone with just a different casting method... but I'd rather the Sorcerer take a new place on the magical spectrum.  Casting spells is the domain of the wizard... _channeling_ magical power through things (like weapons) should become the focus of the Sorcerer.  That's the most interesting and differentiating way for the Sorcerer to go.

(And that being said... I'd personally continue going in that direction even further by then making the Artificer a sub-class of Sorcerer, where rather than channeling magic through weapons... they channel magic through other objects.)


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## pemerton (Sep 13, 2013)

I voted #2. I'm familiar with both the FF usage and the more contemporary useage for any F/MU. Context nearly always makes it clear which usage is intended.


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## S'mon (Sep 14, 2013)

I would never use it except in a githyanki-specific campaign. In game would be swordmage, warrior-wizard, etc. Out of game Fighter-MU or whatever the edition-specific term would be.


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## pemerton (Sep 16, 2013)

S'mon said:


> In game would be swordmage, warrior-wizard, etc. Out of game Fighter-MU or whatever the edition-specific term would be.



Both in game and out of game I think my default description would be "warrior mage".


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## Dannyalcatraz (Sep 16, 2013)

No option for Lillian?


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