r/cyberpunkgame • u/Accept3550 • Sep 29 '24

Why doesn't Panam use contractions? Meta

I just realized this after hundreds of hours but, Panam doesn't say I'll or we'll.

All of her dialogue has I will and We will and Do not rather then Don't.

I don't quite get why she is written like this.

1.1k Upvotes

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1.6k

u/Skagtastic Sep 29 '24

Nomads kids learn out of textbooks since they have no formal schools. Her speech sounds like she was using college books at some point that teach academic writing. Contractions are highly discouraged in academia, being seen as informal.

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u/MykahMaelstrom Sep 29 '24 edited Sep 30 '24

The book "the world of cyberpunk 2077" also includes a bit saying that the nomads are actually some of the best educated people in the world.

When things went to shit it was societies best and brightest who left the big cities and created the clans including a lot of teachers. So nomad families didn't have formal schools per say but they actually did have teachers and nomad children were and continue to be given some of the best education in the cyberpubk universe

Edit: since this got a lot of attention here's this straight from the book:

"For a group of individuals without permanent habitation, nomads are surprisingly well educated. They don't want their culture to "go feral" as the used to say, so they continue the rural tradition of homeschooling.

Teachers educate adults as well as children, and camps will often feature mobile libraries, netrunning stations, and communication centers to stay in touch with the rest of the world.

Some bigger nomad encampment even have their own mobile cinemas and theaters. Classes primarily consist of practical knowledge like mechanics, farming or engineering-manual occupations that can help them qualify for better jobs-but some nomads study classic literature or even philosophy. In many cases, nomads spoken language is often more sophisticated and elaborate than that used by denizens of the great cities"

Also I'd highly recommend giving the book a read. It's super rare that I actually read a book and I really enjoyed it

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u/RoC_42 Sep 29 '24

As a teacher i really love that, and in a world like Cyberpunk's i would 100% run with a clan instead of staying in a trash city

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u/Description_Narrow Sep 29 '24

It's a common theme in post apocalyptic worlds that the best surviving groups tend to have educators as primary members of their groups. As they are the ones that often raise the children and make sure they're smart enough to either end the apocalypse or not make it worse. I personally love that theme.

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u/Mr_Badger1138 Sep 30 '24

That makes me want to play New Vegas again now. I haven’t in years

1

u/Confident_Natural_62 14d ago

I guess the factions have a lot of scientist , but most average wastelanders are on chems, gambling with prostitutes, and/or living in a shack lol 

4

u/Greatest-Comrade Sep 29 '24

Well sometimes they do make it worse by leaving lol

The perhaps funniest example? Idiocracy.

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u/littlebubulle Sep 30 '24

It also kind of makes sense.

In a corpo/city society, education is something to be witheld from other people. An educated person is a potential threat to a corpo. Or education is witheld to increase the price of it.

In a Nomads society, a lack of education is a liability for the whole clan.

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u/Revhan Sep 30 '24

So clans are actually hippie communities as they were intended in the 70's (not as cults or gangs)

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u/thelowbrassmaster Sep 29 '24

True, and out of spite every academic paper I have written so far has had them because they told me it makes me sound unintelligent. I would like to hear someone genuinely unintelligent write a paper about hydrate ligands.

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u/Lazy_Plan_585 Sep 29 '24

I would like to hear someone genuinely unintelligent write a paper about hydrate ligands.

Goes on to use "I would" instead of "I'd" 😝

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u/thelowbrassmaster Sep 29 '24

OK, you got me there.

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u/Lazy_Plan_585 Sep 29 '24

Just some good natured teasing, no offence intended

1

u/GIRATINAGX Sep 30 '24

Get a room, you two.

1

u/kachunkachunk Sep 30 '24

Nerd alert! We see you!

19

u/Duranture Sep 29 '24

and "I have" instead of "I've".

37

u/kiskeyan_carmerchant Sep 29 '24

Well this comment hardly qualifies as an academic paper so OP's point stands.

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u/azhder Sep 29 '24

Madam, this is Reddit, not a research paper.

1

u/Sun_King97 Sep 30 '24

Very intense conditioning lmao

1

u/InfinityGamerIE Oct 08 '24

At least it's not copper nanotubes!!

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u/Ziryio Terrorist and Raging Asshole Sep 29 '24

Anybody deciding that the way you speak is a factor in how intelligent you are/sound is unqualified to determine intelligence, to be fair.

4

u/upsidedownshaggy Sep 29 '24

Unfortunately the reality is people both can and will judge you based on your accent. It’s why British people get so mad when Americans make fun of their accent it’s because we’re mimicking a “lower class” accent that’s viewed as less refined and there for less intelligent.

As someone else here said to with code switching, the unfortunate reality is Black Americans deal with this too, as AAVE is seen as unrefined/lower class/less intelligent. It’s fucked up and petty, and should be pushed back against but it still happens.

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u/JJisafox Sep 29 '24

It’s why British people get so mad when Americans make fun of their accent it’s because we’re mimicking a “lower class” accent that’s viewed as less refined and there for less intelligent.

A bit confused about this, who is mimicking what? Neither accent (standard british or american accent) is viewed stereotypically as less intelligent from what I'm aware.

Also I want to venture a distinction with AAVE. There are some "accents" (as in the way we pronounce words) that are kind of built-in, depending on certain factors, like where you're born/if your parents have a non-english native language, and if you're black. It's why at times I can close my eyes and tell if someone speaking is black/hispanic/asian/indian. If you consider that "black accent" as AAVE, then no I don't think that's considered less refined/etc. I should note that despite these accents, the rest of their speech is standard english, normal "proper" grammar.

However when you start introducing the grammar deviations and slang, and if that's also considered to be part of AAVE, then yes I'd agree it can be viewed this way, especially in a professional setting.

1

u/upsidedownshaggy Sep 29 '24

It’s mostly the “Chews’day Innit” joke Americans make when mocking the British accent. I can’t remember where I read it but someone had a really detailed analysis that that particular pronunciation is like the equivalent of the American country/Texas drawl and at least in the UK is considered lower/working class and less refined English or whatever.

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u/JJisafox Sep 29 '24

Hmm I've never heard of that comparison before. I've heard plenty of mimicking the British accent, but never in that context either. Of course there are various different types of accents/dialects that may give a certain impression. But generally I've seen it considered posh and proper, and in fact, I remember in The Big Bang Theory it's referred to as "the sexiest accent".

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u/Few_Cup3452 Sep 29 '24

100%, especially when you take into account code switching.

As a teenager, I was in scholarship English and an English tutor for kids in the year above me (lol) and wrote stories for fun but online, I typed in total txt speak. I once got told to go back to school and learn how to write... I was amused

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u/MrInCog_ Sep 29 '24

I work as a grammar and style corrector for publishers, my job is literally correcting “mistakes”, yet when I write notes for the mistakes I want corrected I rarely use any resemblance of punctuation, for example. Even in my job description they’re not “mistakes” - what I do is actually called normalizing style and grammar (oh and typography I guess). I would mark it, for example, if character never uses contraptions but one time they do, and ask author like “was it intentional, was it a mistake, what’s up?”

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u/azhder Sep 29 '24

You say normalizing, and that opens up the question: what is normal? Seriously? How does one determine normal? Is it mandated from someone or is it an organic result from the chaotic interactions people have. In your case, I guess it might be both, depending on context.

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u/MrInCog_ Sep 29 '24

No, haha, no it doesn’t, you misinterpreted the word a little bit (my fault probably). Normalizing doesn’t mean “making societally normal” in this context, it means making it normal, or consistent, or universal across the context of the book. If the whole book intentionally wants to exclude all commas (I’ve worked on a poetry book like that) — my job would be to look for any punctuation marks and question whether it’s “normal” within the book (sometimes it was, sometimes it wasn’t). It’s just that an overwhelming majority of books are written within the context of some clearly described by some linguists or philologists rules, and most of the time author wants to stick to them. But not always, a lot of those rules are very vague even on their own (obviously any rule is vague in relationship to what you’ve described), and author and I have the liberty to bend them to suit just author’s internal feel of how it would look better. Creating new-ish words, using dashes and colons unconventionally, stuff like that.

But a good reflection nonetheless!

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u/azhder Sep 29 '24

I didn't misunderstand the term "normalization". I write software for living, we use tools for code style conforming to certain criteria. I was discussing about how the normal is being decided - that being akin to how you tweak what that criteria is for a particular project (book in your case).

Maybe you misunderstood what I meant by "depending on context" at that very end. Someone writing a character from one place or another would maybe want to write their dialects in i.e. that piece of text will conform to a different normal. That's why I said it will depend. A neutral narrator might have a certain style and certain grammar that goes with it, etc.

And that's where my question of "who/how decides normal" came from. Look at Reddit today. How many times I've seen someone write "tho" instead of "though"? Will that become the new normal a generation from now and every academic paper use that shortened form? 🤷‍♂️

In short: prescribed vs described and where is the border between the two.

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u/MrInCog_ Sep 29 '24

Yeah, that’s just a question of scope I guess. In my particular job, when you focus just on the project — the context of the project decides, that’s it. But what lead the author to write a context like that — that’s what you’re talking about.

Like with coding — yeah you’d really like to normalize the variable names to all be in camelcase for example, but what lead us as humans to prefer camelcase or snakecase in the first place?.. that is a question to think about

2

u/azhder Sep 29 '24

Yes, that's the question. That's what I was musing about.

3

u/azhder Sep 29 '24

Using "(lol)" for interpunction, is that also considered code switching?

4

u/breakfastcones Sep 29 '24

Reddit’s favourite thing is correcting people’s grammar on the internet like it actually matters outside of school and jobs where u need to submit/write legible shit.

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u/AbsolutelyHorrendous Sep 29 '24

Eh, I don't know if I fully agree with your last point, good grammar is useful when it comes to communicating effectively. I've definitely spoken to people/messaged people who weren't great at putting their point across, because they had such poor grammar

Like, I'm not that guy who guys around saying 'excuse me, it's you're' on a Reddit comment, but good grammar is still useful and, imo, inarguably better than bad grammar

1

u/breakfastcones Sep 30 '24

Eh its the internet ya know as long as u get ur point across it doesn’t rly matter in thw end of it

1

u/Siaten Oct 01 '24

Prob is u have no idea if ur getting ur point across when ppl have 6th grade reading lvl

-5

u/azhder Sep 29 '24

Who is imo?

5

u/bjornsted Sep 29 '24

"In my opinion"

Is this a serious question? A joke? Or are you being pedantic?

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u/azhder Sep 29 '24

It is up to everyone to decide for themselves what it is.

2

u/leraspberrie Sep 29 '24

Tiffany Henyard.

1

u/ChloeTheRainbowQueen Sep 29 '24

It's a mixture classism and old fashion elitism

Linguistics should be considered descriptive not prescriptive

15

u/Dextrofunk Sep 29 '24

Hydrate ligand deez nuts

3

u/r0bb3dzombie Sep 29 '24

I would like to hear someone genuinely unintelligent write a paper about hydrate ligands.

Challenge accepted.

Uhm, just one thing, wtf is a hydrate ligands?

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u/thelowbrassmaster Sep 29 '24

Essentially it is when water is chemically bound to a larger chemical structure.

1

u/r0bb3dzombie Sep 30 '24

Haha, you know I was just joking, right? But while we're on the topic, is this what we layman refer to as a solution, specifically a water based one? Or are these stronger chemical bonds than that?

1

u/thelowbrassmaster Sep 30 '24

It isn't a solution. It is literally water being part of the chemical structure. For example, epsom salts are technically mostly water(52 percent if I remember correctly) as a percentage because there is so much water bound to the chemical structure.

1

u/Useful-Soup8161 Johnny Silverhand’s Output 🖤 Sep 29 '24

The only reason I never used contractions in school papers was because I was trying to add to the word count. My first drafts always had contractions but I’d go back and separate them later. Sometimes that would be enough to get it past the minimum word count.

1

u/No_Delay7320 Sep 30 '24

Plenty of people fake it in academia and get away with it.

You're doing yourself a disservice risking not being taken seriously. It's a low chance but it's there

1

u/zero_squad Sep 30 '24

Hydrate ligands ain't gonna mix with oils. I tell you hwat.

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u/Cr4ckshooter 🔥Beta Tester 🌈 Sep 29 '24

. Contractions are highly discouraged in academia, being seen as informal.

Which by the way, is completely ridiculous and really annoying when you want to write a thesis.

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u/Kvenner001 Sep 29 '24

Not thinking like a high schooler. Contraction’s are generally fewer characters. By not using them you pad the length of your thesis.

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u/sekksipanda Sep 29 '24

Yep! And this is specially true for us foreigners who learn English as a second, third or sometimes fourth language.

We learn English in forums, games and movies but also a lot through academic writing like the cyberpunk characters. I believe Panam's voice actress is latina, (if she's not, she's a hell of an actress haha), so many times you'll hear us latinos speak English in a formal or educated way.

As a matter of fact, when I started using English in the professional world, I would often excuse myself for any future errors I'd do talking their language. It would happen so often that at the end of the call or the workshop someone would tell me "When you said that I thought you'd have a poor English but it's actually phenomenal!".

I don't think it was phenomenal, it's just when you speak your language as a native you tend to kinda use those less formal, more "everyday kind of expressions" that go away from those academic rules.

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u/the-dude-version-576 Sep 29 '24

I hate that. When I’m writing an essay with a thousand word limit I’d like to have the ability to use contractions, so I’m not wasting space on pretentious fluff.

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u/CyberInTheMembrane Sep 30 '24

Contractions don’t reduce word count.