A Brief History of “Worship*” in Glorantha

[mfbrandi]

This is definitely not a scientific survey, but the issue of whether the single-p or double-p spellings of words related to “worship” — so “worship(p)er”, “worship(p)ed”, and “worship(p)ing” — should be used in the Mythology book came up in the other place. As far as I can tell, both “p” and “pp” are correct in American English, so if Chaosium picks one for a book and applies it fairly consistently, I assume they mean it, and it is fine by me. If it varies across different publications or lines within the business, I don’t mind. Your tolerance may vary. (Of course, deep down in my dark atheist heart, it is double-p all the way, but this post is not prescriptive.)

I had a look over some old Gloranthan publications — various publishers and eras — to see which way things went. Some of this was quickly scanning paper copies, so I may sometimes claim some publication was consistent, although in truth it was not. I mean I am crazy, but not crazy enough to do a thorough job of this. I found the results — such as they are — inexplicably fascinating, although none of it really matters.

• RuneQuest 2, Cults of Prax, & Cults of Terror (1978–1981) — pp
• RuneQuest 3: Introduction to Glorantha Booklet (1984) — p
• RuneQuest 3: Gods of Glorantha (1985) — p
   
• Hero Wars: Roleplaying in Glorantha (2000) — pp
• HeroQuest 1 (2003) — pp
• HeroQuest 2 (2009) — worshipers, worshippers, worshipped
• HeroQuest Glorantha (2015) — worshippers, worshipers, worshipped, worshiped, worshipping, worshiping
   
• 13th Age Glorantha — worshipers, worshipped, worshiped
   
• RQG Quickstart (2017) — worshipper, worshipers, worshiping, worshipped, worshiped
• RQG Starter Set Glorantha Book (2021) — p (with a stray “werewolf-worshipping” — presumably a cut-and-paste from an earlier work)
• RQG Prosopaedia (2023) — p

So there does seem to be a drift over time from double-p to single-p — if my sampling is representative, which there is certainly room to doubt. Any disorder in the middle is clearly due to Eurmal and not the fault of the editors and proof-readers. I wonder whether Avalon Hill had early adopters of the single-p spellings, or whether the original Chaosium crew were contrarian holdouts for the old ways, even in the 1970s.

Not a topic with legs, and if you found this as intriguing as I did, you should probably make an appointment with your therapist. 😉

[g33k]

1 hour ago, mfbrandi said:

...

Not a topic with legs, and if you found this as intriguing as I did, you should probably make an appointment with your therapist. 😉

I don't think my therapist is up for this level of madness.
Can you refer me to yours, please?

🤣

[radmonger]

This kind of textual analysis is interesting, to me at least.

Officially US and UK English are supposed to differ on this, but in fact, the UK spelling is predominant in the US:

https://sapling.ai/usage/worshiping-vs-worshipping

One theory is that when the Jrustelan colonists attempted to purge Brithini influence by their great spelling reforms, they were unable to update words commonly used in existing copies of the Abiding Book.

 

[jajagappa]

13 hours ago, radmonger said:

but in fact, the UK spelling is predominant in the US

There has been a common trend in recent years, particularly in marketing material to drop the second repetitive consonant. We see this in many instances. Perhaps it's the result of tweet constraints or a desire to shorten text overall...

We can blame Gbaji.