Words, Words, Words

Words in SL and Gor can be strange.  Language is most often written rather than spoken, especially when role playing, and people often tend to forget what they are reading on screen is actually meant to be taken as speech. Then again there are plenty of people who know your name without ever being told it ("it says it above your head...") or who can read your thoughts when you emote them.

The way some words are handled annoys me greatly...such as Master and master.  Yes you can read the difference but can you hear it when you speak?  I very much doubt it since it is the same exact word except for the capitalisation...and I am definitely not the sort of person who says "Tal, master with a capital m".  Most of the time it goes by unnoticed when you miss the capitalisation, other times you find you are addressing an arsehole...with a capital a.

Ash Horchester: "Tal, master"
Master Arsehole: "Address me as Master"
Ash Horchester: "Erm...I did Master..."
Master Arsehole: "No you called me master instead of Master"
Ash Horchester does not HEAR a difference in the words but smiles at the arsehole in front of him; "Sorry Master, I do apologise for my error".
Ash Horchester would also like to point out that his use of the word 'arsehole' was not in thought not in speech so please do not react to it, you complete and utter fuckwit (also not direct speech).
Master Arsehole becomes apoplectic and gets Muted.

A word is sometimes used to describe male slaves within the gay Gorean environment I role play in..."boi".  This is not a word from the works of John Norman but is a slang term used (mostly) within the LGBT and BDSM communities.  Obviously when "spoken" it is impossible to distinguish 'boi' and 'boy', but it does annoy me when it is written in a scroll or such.  In the lesbian community, boi refers to a boyish lesbian.  In the gay community, boi is a young gay man.  In the BDSM community, boi is a term used for someone who is a usually passive/submissive.  It can be hard to see how the word relates to some of the role players in SL Gor.  The male slaves are generally not lesbians (well...), some of the slaves can be 100 years old and still be slaves so are not young and not all of the slaves are submissive in the furs; there are plenty of Free Men who can easily answer to 'Master' in public and 'my bitch' in private!  At least we can be thankful that it is never used in capital letters as BOI...as that would be an abbreviation for the Bank Of Ireland...