Dragon Name Change and Capital Lettered Pet Names Thread

[Seerow]

Meh, I guess this would go here?

Dragon had its name changed to rreign, which is quite possibly the worst species name on Subeta at the moment Notice how its also not capitalized. To quote Luxe on the reasoning from the news comments:

Indeed. We don't go around talking about White Tigers or Black Rhinos in Abc case, do we?

Does the fact that all the other species on Subeta have caps mean nothing?

[Jessi]

It's REALLY bothering me that it's not capitalized, too. That was the first thing I noticed, how silly and out of place and unofficial it looked. No, maybe we don't say "That animal is called an Ostrich" (or well, write. I guess we don't say capital letters e_e) in English, but the fact that EVERY other pet always has their name capitalized, combined with the fact that this pet has a stupid double consonant at the beginning of its name, makes the name 'rreign', without a capital letter, look utterly ridiculous.

That's all I have to say.

ETA: I thought I'd add some examples, heh, just to prove a point:

The Hikei is up for poll again!

Or, perhaps it truly is the sound of some unfortunate soul who has run into the Graveyard Celinox and Nightmare Terracoon.

The genteel Malticorn has bested the Archan in combat, sending it straight to the graveyard!

While the Nightmare Paralix seems very eager to make your acquaintance, the Graveyard Escalade seems to be puzzling over the effects of its recent Zombee sting.

All from the most recent news posts that mention pet names. ANNOYING.

ETA #2

Quoted from Luxe on the comments:

I am sorry that so many people are disturbed by the lowercase name, but a decision was made rather recently to discontinue capitalizing species names and colors. The rreign is the first news post of many more to come affected by this change.

Really, what a stupid change. It makes the pets look very unimportant and impersonal somehow. I know it's the smallest change, but I find it rather dumb.

[Saturn]

Really, the lack of capitalization makes the name look more like a typo than anything else. o_O Like they meant to just put "Reign" but messed up and somehow put a second r when they meant to hit Shift... if that's even possible. XD

[Jessi]

I put this in the comments, but I think the reason I dislike it so much is because it's like reading something about people from another culture or country without the first letter capitalized. Ex, Japanese versus japanese, German versus german, etc. It just makes the pet names look... silly. I can't explain it. I just don't like it.

[bonecrivain]

I'm reading the comments on Subeta, and it's difficult for me to understand that some people actually LIKE the name change. Granted, "Dragon" wasn't particularly inventive, but "rreign" is...idiotic. It makes the word-lover in me cringe. Putting the ridiculous claim of being "inspired by Welsh" aside, it's just a stupid name. It's like the world's worst fantasy writers got together and created a name that even they would laugh at. Adding a double consonant doesn't make a name clever--it shows a desperate lack of creativity.

I'm so appalled by the name, I can't even put words together properly to express my disgust.

[Rah]

Wow, crazy emotions here. I've always been rather unaffected by name changes myself - they've never bothered me and I've always been rather surprised myself at the over exaggeration of people's responses to them. I don't know why the claim that rreign was inspired by Welsh is ridiculous? It really was inspired by Welsh! We were looking at Y Ddraig Goch and talking about the welsh language and it's use of double consonants and we found it rather interesting. (I have a Welsh boyfriend too, so I really liked it!) Powerful sounding. I love that it's a double 'r' because I read it as a rolling 'r' sound, which I really enjoy pronouncing. Like 'grreign' without the g! GRRRR

But yes. Malticorns are malticorns, terracoons are terracoons, and kanises are kanises. It's just the species name, and we're finally recognising it as such. It's not a pronoun

[Jessi]

No offense, Rah, but just because you (as in Subeta staff, not you) are finally recognizing it doesn't mean any of us have to like it, and it doesn't make it look nor sound better just because Staff likes it. I still think it's a stupid change, and just another thing that draws Subeta further away from a focus on pets.

(edited cause apparently I don't do grammar.)

[Seerow]

Pretty much quoting what I typed in the comment here.

Aren't you guys (staff in general here) always saying how this isn't Earth and thus can't be tied to Earth rules? Which is why you changed all the holiday names and numerous other details. Well, who's to say on Subeta species names can't be capitalized? It just looks stupid with it not so, especially after nearly 4 years of them always being capitalized.

Edit: Another point. If, following staff logic that you don't capitalize the Rreigns name because it isn't a proper noun, doesn't that mean that all the minion items and like will have to be changed as well? After all, the Ounce, Velvet, etc are just species of minions. So if they don't want to constantly be breaking their own rule all minions and future ones should be lower case. I can not see that going over well at all if that change occurs.

[bonecrivain]

Using a regular word like "reign" (I get the connection being made here) and adding another "r" doesn't make it Welsh. Nor does it make it clever or cool-sounding. I'm just saying that if the name change was inspired by looking at old dragon legends, particularly Welsh versions, there were a LOT better options. And I'm not even good at naming things.

Also, I agree with jessi's and Serrow's points. The staff relies too heavily on inconsistent logic to prop up all their less-than-great changes.

[Goldenchaos]

Well now when they do colours for pets it will look silly. It just makes the pets seem less important too. Neopets has always capitalized their pet names because they ARE important ..now pets are nothing more than items on Subeta. Things, more like. Even if animal names arent capitalized generally in english... ..it' will just look like they cant do grammar when new pets are released.

Makes no sense.

[Twofold Black]

I don't know why the claim that rreign was inspired by Welsh is ridiculous? It really was inspired by Welsh! We were looking at Y Ddraig Goch and talking about the welsh language and it's use of double consonants and we found it rather interesting. (I have a Welsh boyfriend too, so I really liked it!) Powerful sounding. I love that it's a double 'r' because I read it as a rolling 'r' sound, which I really enjoy pronouncing. Like 'grreign' without the g! GRRRR

Er, there is no digraph rr in Welsh, and r always represents a rolled R (an unvoiced one, in the case of rh). This is why claiming that it's Welsh-inspired is absurd. Sure, it is literally the case that you were inspired by Welsh, but to reflect this you've applied a feature no Welsh word has to an English word that is basically a great big artefact of the Old French influence on Old English. You're doing it wrong.

[Jessi]

Totally off topic, but what's that I spy? A POST FROM TWOFOLD BLACK?!

*GLOMP*

[Rah]

No Twofold - inspired in that we liked the double consonant To be inspired doesn't mean we could only use a double d or double l just because they are the only letters doubled in the welsh language (I believe? Lol, I just bought a dog harness from Benllech actually.) But in subeta there is no letter representing a rolled 'r' and to make the sound the double consonant worked for us in the two respects (that is, getting the sound we wanted, and also with the nod to the double consonant of the welsh red dragon)

And honestly, I do find it cool-sounding xD That doesn't mean anyone else has to - I totally respect people's opinions that they don't like it or find it stupid. But I don't know, I'd kind of like the same done back to me? Respect that me and some others DON'T find it stupid? Or, well, you know. Carry on and such. I suppose this is indeed your guys place to rant! I'll leave now and stop trying to defend/back up decisions with inconsistent logic xD

[Wingsrising]

What I find especially ironic is that the common names of animal species frequently ARE capitalized. I used be very active in birding and the common names of bird species are ALWAYS capitalized -- it's not a blue jay, it's a Blue Jay. (A blue jay would be any member of the jay family that happened to be blue in color.)

So Subeta is actually going from a standard American English usage to a very weird usage.

Also, yeah. I agree that rreign is an absurdly silly name. Throwing random extra letters into a word != clever (and definitely != Welsh).

[Luxe]

So, we should do it because Neopets does it? I saw the same argument made with naming Halloween, and I couldn't believe it. How many people would be in line to mock us if we made decisions on the basis of what Neopets was doing? Personally, I think that makes no sense.

No one is saying users have to love and appreciate the change because we chose to mention how we came to be inspired by the Welsh language and its use of double consonants. No one is saying users have to appreciate why we were recognizing that Subeta species are not proper names. That is not to say that we can't attempt to explain our choices, and I hardly think Rah was attempting to take away your right of free will simply because she, as a staff member and a regular member of this forum, expressed enthusiasm for the name. Although lately I even question the choice of sharing our reasoning with users when we make a choice. It doesn't seem to accomplish much of anything; people will complain regardless and we shouldn't try to stop that or think we can.

To be frank, I find myself bewildered over the volume of users, specifically members of Neocolours, who are put off and even disgusted by this new name, considering the vast multitude of this community turned its back on the species in favor of the mahar over a year ago. Why does the name continue to matter this much when the pet was already on everyone's Poop List?