You are not god, no making universes. Bad wolf. Leave that to the physicists, religiouscists, and globe makers.

I AM a Physicist! :P

Well, just because you swap out one wo--OH MY GOD YOUR NEW ICON IS SO CUTE!!

...

Well, just because you swap out one word, in a contextual sense, doesn't necessitate the an blanket etymological change for the whole rest of the language. Especially since, as readers, the story is being told in English for our benefit.

For a story set in an alternate universe, for instance, just because we're seeing the dialogue in English and reading the descriptions in English doesn't mean it really is English. (Same goes for stories set in other countries.)

It does make sense, but that almost precludes using the term "paw" at all in the first place. :P But dammit, I'm going to do it anyways because it's awesome.

Re: Icon: You can be as cute as me!! http://www.furaffinity.net/view/3015873

Maybe paw is short for "handpaw" (or footpaw, depending on context), in which case I don't see many etymological changes as necessary.

*nods* This would make sense. I get the inkling that evolution of the language would simply remove the "paw" segment as irrelevant over time, though, leaving me at square one. :P

My compliments on your avvie, it's very cute. I might even say pawsome. (Awesomely pawsome?)

Substituting "paw" for "hand" in words is a way that furries can identify themselves to each other and participate in furry activity. Modifying words to make them "fannish" is fairly common. For instance, Science Fiction fans in the 40s-60s used to insert a silent h into nouns when applying them to their fandom; they were blighted by Ghod, played bhadinton, drank choffee with their shandwiches, etc. (It was only in fanzines that one could find this; the "h" itself was silent.) Such thing are only lame if you're not part of the fandom.

BTW, what if I was an acrobat? I'm not a bat, I'm an otter. Wouldn't I be an acro-otter?

Well, see, I'm not actually talking about terms made solely for the sake of appealing to the furry public by just jamming fur-related words into normal words. I'd never consider using "pawsome" or "furiend" in serious words. However, all the words I mentioned in my journal are all derived from the actual body part, "hand". Thus, if "hands" are "paws" in my world, it makes linguistic sense that all words containing "hand" in that sense would be converted to "paw". Hence, "farmpaw".

I'm not going to do it, after consideration.... But it's tempting.

I'm going to have to get off my ass someday and write a whole new language that's structurally derived in such a way that would make sense for a developed nation of anthropomorphs.

That's an ambitious project and it could very well demonstrate hidden structures in English, maybe other languages as well. I wish you luck with it, I definitely believe it's worth doing.

Haha, we'll see then. :P

I've gotten into these sorts of word problems. Another one that's cropped up for me is occurence of the word "man" inside other words. Does "swordsman" become "swordswolf" if it's a wolf, or "swordscat" if it's a cat? What about "repairman" or "businessman" and a host of other words describing professions?

That is indeed another troublesome issue, though I don't think it's as awkward to use "businesswolf", for example. After all, we've already messed those terms up in our society from "salesman" to "saleswoman" to "salesperson".

*nods* I suppose you're right. Though I found myself worrying about this a bit in the story I'm working on.

OH GOD KHAZ YOU MAKE MY BRAIN HURT!

Please make it stop. ;~;

Also... If the term you prefer is pawing off.. Does that mean nonfurries say handing off? :x

Nope. Nonfurries talk about somehow offing this dude named Jack.

Oh this is true.. But still, you hurt my head.. I can only take so much before I'm overloaded, don't do it again. :c