Spelling and Grammar Standards

[Oglemi]

Contractions being allowed is a fair point that I've never really been able to justify myself (and the main reason why I call it pseudo-formality lol), usually my thoughts are "technically we shouldn't but it's not worth fighting it at this point and it's not really that big a deal either way".

"Conversationally formal" is how I used to describe it, and what I think works best with the community you're pulling writers from and writing for. For the problems that Cracked has, I've always liked the style of writing they allow, as it works for them (being informative + entertaining). If we were solely going for being informative, I can see us sticking to being as formal as possible. But I've never viewed our analyses as being strictly informative... they were always a source of entertainment, as the writers are those that play the game and are the ones also doing the writing.

I think being formal in writing has its merit, but allowing colloquialism/shorthand I don't think harms the level of professionalism we currently have. Shoddy writing and ignorance of subject does way more to that than minor word choice and artistic creativity 9.9

 

[Lumari]

Quick update now that the new games are dropping and will be gracing us with some new acronyms / forme names; if there's anything (else) that needs discussing / that we overlooked feel free to post.

- Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon = USM, not USUM or (god forbid) USUMO;
- Dusk Mane Necrozma = Necrozma-S (where S stands for Solgaleo) Necrozma-DM;
- bad Necrozma forme = Necrozma-L Necrozma-DW;
- Ultra Necrozma = Ultra Necrozma;
- Dusk Lycanroc = Lycanroc-D.

That is all.

 

[Jibaku]

Requesting a change on Necrozma-S and Necrozma-L as acronyms because they're not close to anything official. While I can see -DM and -DW being a tad confusing, -M and -W are still options, better corresponding with their Japanese titles (Mane of Twilight, Wings of Dawn) and pretty much still matching their English titles.

 

[Mr. Uncompetitive]

Requesting a change on Necrozma-S and Necrozma-L as acronyms because they're not close to anything official. While I can see -DM and -DW being a tad confusing, -M and -W are still options, better corresponding with their Japanese titles (Mane of Twilight, Wings of Dawn) and pretty much still matching their English titles.

also we didn't call Kyurem-B Kyurem-Z and Kyurem-W Kyurem-R so we have precedent to follow through with this.

 

[Lumari]

would be okay with -M and -W too. reason why we went with -S and -L was because we hadn't seen people even try to coin forme names in discussion threads (defaulting to "Dusk Mane" and "Dawn Wings", not even mentioning "Necrozma") like we had with e.g. Lycanroc during early SM, so we didn't have that to go off, and that indeed -DW and -DM didn't fit the one-letter suffix mould; defining them according to their base pokemon seemed more intuitive than trying to shoehorn their official forme names into one letter. will leave this hanging for a bit longer in case other arguments come up but no issue with making this change if those match natural language better.

 

[Ivy]

The other alternative I heard people favoring was simply W and M. Imo this is the most aesthetically pleasing so by far the greatest choice
e: I think i misread plumberjack's post as D and M or something, or it was ninja edited, RIP

 

[Lumari]

Ok since I figure that anyone in favour of Necrozma-S / -L would have posted by now and since Nayrz agreed that those forme names indeed suck, those are out. However, since my previous post we've also spent some time rethinking the precedents we've been operating under, and the convention has really always been "truncated" rather than "one letter" per se. Thus, while stuff like Rotom-Fa / Rotom-Fr / Lycanroc-Du is not an option nor will it ever be, Necrozma-DM / Necrozma-DW are not the automatic "no" we thought they'd be at first. "Natural language" still hasn't really tried to coin any forme names for Dawn Wings and Dusk Mane and still tends to default to "Dawn Wings" or "Necroluna" or similar stuff, but the couple scattered cases that we have seen indeed had people use Necrozma-DM / Necrozma-DW. Those forme names also are of course a lot more intuitive than any of -S / -L / -M / -W; really the only counterargument we had was "it's not one letter", and with that one out of the window there isn't really any reason not to go with -DM / -DW. I know this is not one of the options offered at first, but for the reasons cited we don't expect this standard to be controversial. If you still think -M / -W would be superior then post quick please, these formes need a name (well) before Ubers C&C resumes.

Tl;dr: Necrozma-DM / Necrozma-DW.

...so yes this means all this could have been avoided, but hopefully this is a standard everyone's happy with. Sorry about the flipflopping.

 

[Lumari]

Quick announcement since we never decided on anything official for this, should Totem Pokemon pop up in an analysis, refer to them as "Totem [Pokemon]". E.g. "Totem Araquanid". Same deal as the Mega / Alolan / etc standard.

That is all.

 

[Patbrucey]

"Uber" should only be used as an adjective ("the Uber tier") or to refer to Pokemon ("Mega Mawile is an Uber");

Mega Mawile is not an Uber. Not that it matters in context, but you may want to up date it.

 

[philiptsmithii]

This is a bit pedantic, but I figured I'd throw this out there. Check out this bullet point from the op:

• When setup is being used as a noun, spell it as setup and not set-up (Pichu is setup bait for Mewtwo). When it is being used an adjective, spell it as either set-up or set up as appropriate (A fully set-up Pichu mows through teams with little effort / His Pichu was not fully set up yet). The verb form, to set up, is spelled as such (Mewtwo can set up on Pichu).

In the sentence "Pichu is setup bait for Mewtwo," setup is in fact an adjective; it modifies "bait," which is a noun. "Setup bait" is a noun phrase (it plays the role of the direct object in this sentence), but "setup" is not a noun. I'm not sure how much this matters to the C&C team, but it might behoove you guys to be absolutely correct about English grammar in a post about grammar standards. Just my nitpicky two cents. :)

 

[Lumari]

This is a bit pedantic, but I figured I'd throw this out there. Check out this bullet point from the op:

• When setup is being used as a noun, spell it as setup and not set-up (Pichu is setup bait for Mewtwo). When it is being used an adjective, spell it as either set-up or set up as appropriate (A fully set-up Pichu mows through teams with little effort / His Pichu was not fully set up yet). The verb form, to set up, is spelled as such (Mewtwo can set up on Pichu).

In the sentence "Pichu is setup bait for Mewtwo," setup is in fact an adjective; it modifies "bait," which is a noun. "Setup bait" is a noun phrase (it plays the role of the object in this sentence), but "setup" is not a noun. I'm not sure how much this matters to the C&C team, but it might behoove you guys to be absolutely correct about English grammar in a post about grammar standards. Just my nitpicky two cents. :)

It's definitely not an adjective, "setup bait" is a compound noun / noun phrase formed out of two nouns, and "setup" is not really separable from the phrase like an ordinary adjective would be / is grammatically not treated like an adjective, either. Nevertheless that's arguing semantics and I agree that it's better to have the sample sentence use "setup" as a standalone noun, so I've changed it accordingly.

 

[Lemonade]

I'm wondering about a phrase like "win condition sweeper", as in "Blah also makes for a great win condition sweeper." and similar. I feel like this is the compromise we've been looking for. First of all, the phrase isn't blatantly incorrect, since the main noun is still sweeper. More importantly, it describes the sweeper as the Pokémon that is going to win the game, or as the Pokémon with the potential to win the game, which is what people get at when they use "win condition" (incorrectly) anyway. Ultimately, there are some Pokemon that have a higher chance of pulling off a sweep than others, so an idea like this is useful.

 

[P Squared]

if this finally ends the win condition debacle then im all for it

 

[Fireflame]

"Choice" in "Choice item" is always capitalized when talking about any non-specific Choice item, such as Choice Specs, Choice Scarf, and Choice Band (Tyranitar is an excellent user of Choice items). When not used in context of the generalized items, then choice is not capitalized (The choice of which to do is up to you).

The bullet isn't clear/specific about hyphenating or not hyphenating the phrase "Choice item". I was informed (in a GP check on my article) that 3 GPers confirmed that the phrase should never be hyphenated, regardless if it is used as a standalone noun ("Tyranitar greatly benefits from Choice items like Choice Scarf and Choice Band") or in a compound noun phrase ("Choice item user"). I think the phrase is used enough to warrant specification on it never being hyphenated.

 

[Astra]

out here with the six month bump leggo

martha made a good point to me on how the term speed control should be used while checking over one of my amchecks, which is that speed control doesn't refer to Choice Scarf or fast Pokemon in general, but rather means such as Thunder Wave and Tailwind.
I didn't quite catch that because the way speed control is described:

The term speed control is used to refer to "control of how quickly Pokemon will act."

It's not like it doesn't get it's point across, but it sounds like it's also grouping ways to alter Speed with Choice Scarf and such. It's not a huge deal, especially for those experienced with these terms, but I think it'll be helpful just to add another small detail to the term for writers and amgpers (like me!).

 

[Lumari]

Hi, so, as you guys all know (and are doing a good job catching), e.g. "Flying-type resists" is bad.

But that doesn't mean they should be blanket changed to "Flying-resistant Pokemon". Ofc that starts to look pretty gross pretty quick especially if multiple of those are used close together, but often with the way language works and all the resistance technically isn't even the main point the writer wants to convey. Chesnaught doesn't pair well with "Flying-type resist" Diancie because Diancie resists Flying, it does because Diancie can switch in on and tank Flying-type attacks for it. "Flying-type switch-ins" would work fine here too and is a lot less wordy than "Pokemon that resist Flying", other options would be "Flying-type checks", "Flying-type answers", "countermeasures to Flying-types", etc you name em. Just see what makes most sense in the context. (And to complicate things more there's definitely also scenarios where the resistance specifically is what's important... again, there too make the change that's most appropriate in context.)

That's all not to say that "Flying-resistant Pokemon" is by any means wrong, because it isn't, but you guys have got more arrows in your quiver than that one, don't be afraid to use them.

 

[Honko]

Hi, so, as you guys all know (and are doing a good job catching), e.g. "Flying-type resists" is bad.

But that doesn't mean they should be blanket changed to "Flying-resistant Pokemon". Ofc that starts to look pretty gross pretty quick especially if multiple of those are used close together, but often with the way language works and all the resistance technically isn't even the main point the writer wants to convey. Chesnaught doesn't pair well with "Flying-type resist" Diancie because Diancie resists Flying, it does because Diancie can switch in on and tank Flying-type attacks for it. "Flying-type switch-ins" would work fine here too and is a lot less wordy than "Pokemon that resist Flying", other options would be "Flying-type checks", "Flying-type answers", "countermeasures to Flying-types", etc you name em. Just see what makes most sense in the context. (And to complicate things more there's definitely also scenarios where the resistance specifically is what's important... again, there too make the change that's most appropriate in context.)

That's all not to say that "Flying-resistant Pokemon" is by any means wrong, because it isn't, but you guys have got more arrows in your quiver than that one, don't be afraid to use them.

Just wanna call out that some of these suggested alternatives can make a sentence ambiguous, so be careful when you use them. "Teams that lack a Rock-type switch-in will be hard pressed to deal with this set." Does that mean teams need a Pokemon that can switch in on Rock-types, or does it mean they need a Rock-type that can switch in? Who can say?

Also I nominate "SubCM" and "countersweep" for coined terms. I don't see them on the list, but if ChestoRest and underspeed can make it, so can these!

 

[Lumari]

Also I nominate "SubCM" and "countersweep" for coined terms. I don't see them on the list, but if ChestoRest and underspeed can make it, so can these!

Added SubCM to this bullet (which maybe ChestoRest should also be folded into in some way too but):

When referring to the combination of Rest and Sleep Talk, use RestTalk. This also goes for other accepted move combinations, including BoltBeam, VoltTurn, SubSeed, SubCM, and EdgeQuake. These combinations should not be reversed; QuakeEdge is not OK.

That list never was comprehensive (there'll always be one that we forget + most are "obvious" so we've always found it better to leave it slightly open ended), but ofc I'm happy to add more examples to it when needed.

Also added countersweep; reason why no one thought to add it before probably is that unlike "underspeed" it's just "existent word + existent prefix" without a change to the meaning or use of either, and it's p likely that we're missing other "straightforward" coinages like that, but if this one's been causing issues it should be there ya, and if anyone thinks of any others lmk.

(also I'm not too happy with my definition so open to changing it to something better)

 

[Empress]

Here's something else to add, possibly: efficient and effective are not synonyms.
Effective = does it well
Efficient = does it well while using the least effort/resources possible

EDIT: Here's something else.
"Easier" is not an adverb; "more easily" is the adverb.

EDIT: Here's a third one: "in turn" = "after that" or "as a result"; it is not a synonym for "in return".

 

[warzoid]

I have encountered the phrase "as a setup fodder" in multiple analyses. I believe the phrase should be "as setup fodder," since fodder is a noncount noun (mass noun). Taunt Keldeo can use Toxapex as setup fodder.