Aran the Mad God Emperor, and Smiting

Welsh General / Questions
#1

Hi folks,

[Written by Kev the @Wondersheep with his moderator hat on, but not on behalf of anyone else, opinions are my own and not those of, etc. etc. Any mistakes I’ll find a way to blame on someone else, though]

As everyone knows, Aran is a mad (and evil) emperor with delusions of godhood, who goes around this forum inflicting his personal whims and fancies on us without care for what anyone else thinks, particularly with regards to things like correcting people’s tone in posts and the suchlike…

Actually, no, that’s not true and I’d like to say a couple of words about that to prevent any misunderstandings.

While Aran is (for obvious reasons) the most prolific moderator-of-forums in these here parts, and he greatly influences the culture around here, he’s not acting alone. I’m not going to go through and enumerate all the mods here, but there’s actually a group of us, we discuss things that are happening in the forum, we discuss what tone is appropriate where, and we try to Be Good Forum Peoples. There was some moderation that happened last night, with inappropriate tones being used, and while I don’t want to dwell on that here, it seems like it’s important to know that Aran went to the moderator group and started discussing it (after the event in this case, as things were getting heated quickly - generally it would have been before). We had a discussion about whether it had been appropriate, whether Aran’s responses were appropriate or if he was being heavy-handed (he wasn’t, in my opinion), and we generally regulate the work we do, including things like this.

Why am I telling you this? Well, mostly because I like to ramble and I don’t feel I’ve done enough of that on the forum recently, but partly because I think it’s important for people to know that when people get called out by mods, it really is because we’re dealing with genuine community norms, and not just because you’re being smitten by the angry mad god evil emperor Aran.

The forum’s important to us, and we try fairly hard to keep it as a healthy place for everyone. We’re sorry (I’m putting words in people’s mouths now, shame on me) when that sometimes means taking corrective action, but we, as a group, feel it’s sometimes (very rarely) necessary.

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#2

Mad God Empoeror Aran for First Minister!

Whoowhooehoo.

And similar.

But no - thank to all the mods for keeping SSIWs norms so very very unlike the Internet at large and so warm and pleasant a community.

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#3

Just to add, briefly, that to me it is absolutely essential that this forum is a safe space where we can all feel comfortable and welcome and able to contribute or lurk in a corner if we want or ask questions, whether obvious or obscure. We all remember the first time we dared to speak our stumbling first words of Welsh with a stranger and how much courage it took. Well, we can’t afford for it to take any courage at all to come into the forum and become part of this community, That’s why there is a zero tolerance policy on any antagonistic behaviour. Unless walking onto the forum is like walking into a cwtsh, good people will be lost to the language which wouldn’t be great for Welsh, but more importantly, speaking as someone who’s life has been changed profoundly by becoming a Welsh speaker, would be a tragedy for those individuals.

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#4

I would like to second this @robbruce.

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#5

Speaking as someone who in a (not terribly serious) posting a while back, described himself as a potential future supreme benevolent dictator of the Republic of Great Britain, I feel I must express my solidarity with Comrade Aran in his smiting god emperor role, and offer him life membership of the Amalgamated Union of Supreme Benevolent Dictators and Mad Smiting God Emperors, and Allied Operatives.

(Perks include membership of the Library of Eternal Knowledge (early closing Thursdays)).

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#6

Thank you for that extremely powerful reminder of where all this started, and why it’s not up for negotiation. Diolch o galon :heart:

@mikeellwood - life membership gratefully accepted. What’s the coffee like in the library? :wink:

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#7

I want in!

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#8

We’ll need to see a signed copy of your Smiting Lists.

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#9

shudders at memories of mortgage application

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#10

Beginner’s error. If you’d smitten the mortgage application, you’d have been straight in.

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#11

Is ‘smitten’ really the past participle of ‘smite’? I suppose it is. How odd! One seems so … cuddly, and the other so … receiving-end-of-a-thunderbolt-but-not-in-a-nice-way. I honestly had never realised they were connected until just now. Yet again - every day’s a school day!

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#12

I checked before using it, in case I looked silly :wink:

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#13

Disappointingly, Ap Geiriaduron has ‘bwrw or taro’ for ‘smite’. Surely there must be a more apocalyptic chapel Welsh word for smite. Could be useful in the context of ‘Gwranda wnei di, thou shalt be smitten if you don’t stop it!’

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#14

It turns out that “kite” is a verb (meaning to fly a kite, float like a kite, or even travel by kite (!)). Sadly, though, its past participle is not “kitten”. Disappointing :slight_smile:

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#15

That never stopped you in the past! :joy::heart_eyes:

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#16

Nice one, got me thinking a bit (something I try to avoid these days).

Smite, smote, smitten.
Write, wrote, written.
Bite, bote, bitten? Maybe not.

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#17

In Genesis 32:8 and 32:11, where Esau is going about smiting, the verb is ymosod. Where it’s God Himself doing the smiting in Exodus 3:20, Exodus 7:17, Exodus 8:16, Exodus 9:15, Exodus 12:12, Exodus 12:13 and Exodus 12:23, it’s taro. When God smites with a plague of frogs in Exodus 8:2, it’s afon pla - send a plague. But when Moses smites the rock at Horeb in Exodus 17:6, we’re right back to taro. And that is enough research for one afternoon. I used the Welsh at beibl.net for my researches and the King James for occurrences of “smite”.

So if you’re going for the “I’m going to smite you” vibe, “Bydda i’n afon pla ar chi” is probably as good you’re going to get, based on my limited researches.

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