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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsBreakfast Topic: I don't like the word 'toon'
by Mathew McCurley 
Mar 30th 2012 at 8:00AM
Maybe it's the various permutations of the way people say toon. It's very easy to turn the double-ohs into an elongated, strained toooooooooooooon that stings your ligaments. I don't hate people who use the word, of course. There would be too much hate in the world. My Sha would consume Pandaria, Azeroth, and escape into the Titan's living room, sit down, and watch the game with Sargeras. You are not the problem; my weird aversion to the word is.
Obviously I don't hate the word that much -- it's just not my preferred term. So what is it with the word toon? Change my opinion, give me a comment spanking, or rally behind my unknowable and toon-phobic sentiments. Please, sound off on the word toon.
Filed under: Breakfast Topics
Reader Comments (Page 5 of 9)
samhain Mar 30th 2012 9:01AM
I am with you Mat, the use of the word "toon" makes my skin crawl.
Not as much as "soz" or putting lol in every sentence, though. Toon just degrades the pixels I have put some much time in :) Character is what I use to refer to them. Not even char.
RedMosquito Mar 30th 2012 9:04AM
My pet peeve is the word "deeps" for DPS. Grrrr.
evoxpisces Mar 30th 2012 9:22AM
"Deeps"? Really? Are people that lazy that they can't say Dee-Pee-Ess? I mean come on now. Luckily I haven't heard anyone say it that way...yet.
Lizenz Mar 30th 2012 11:27AM
I hear "deeps" a lot and have myself grown fond of it, though not in the way most people use it. I tend to save it for sentences laced in sarcasm like when I'm having a bad day with the meters I'll be like *THAT GUY voice* "Yo bro check out mah mad deeps!"
Drakkenfyre Mar 30th 2012 11:56AM
I had never heard of it until someone on here mentioned disliking it as well.
Then I started seeing people use it.
Annoys the hell out of me.
Didax Mar 30th 2012 12:23PM
I've never heard anyone use "deeps" to refer to damage per second, as in "Check out my deeps on Recount."
I've only heard it when referring to a DPS player, and even then only in spoken conversation, never typed. E.g. "So what are we waiting for?" ... "We're just waiting on a pair of deeps, then we're good to go."
Strangely, I find the latter to be acceptable, but the former to be grating. I've never seen anyone actually type out "deeps" to refer to either...but I imagine that'd be pretty annoying.
FoxKelfonne Mar 30th 2012 9:09AM
My squad of adventurers are my characters. The denizens of Toontown are toons.
StClair Mar 30th 2012 1:22PM
This, exactly.
Lizenz Mar 30th 2012 9:11AM
Thank you Mathew McCurly. I thought I was the only one...
spacedog Mar 30th 2012 9:12AM
I hate it too, it just sounds odd.
Is it an American thing? I've only ever read it on fansites, I never see anyone use it in-game (EU servers).
I tend to go with "characters", or sometimes "guys" too.
Pryn Mar 30th 2012 11:33AM
Same here, never really see toon in use on the various EU servers where I play. Generally I see people referring to their chars, short for characters. Perhaps its from mostly playing on RP servers, that we consider them actual characters as opposed to just gaming avatars.
El Gucks Mar 30th 2012 9:14AM
I'm so with you on this. I hate the word toon. Alts is better, but I just really dislike the sound of 'toon'
ravyncat Mar 30th 2012 9:15AM
I call my characters my kids.
(I also call my cats my kids. As you might guess, I have no real children yet.)
I don't really have any strong feelings towards the word toon though. Sometimes I use that instead because i know people will understand what I mean. The only reason I ever use toon though is because I have heard my guild leader use that term almost exclusively to talk about his characters.
I am a bit of a WoW newbie (he has been playing since Vanilla) and just assumed "toon" was the accepted term for WoW characters.
viciouspen Mar 30th 2012 9:17AM
Toooooooooooooooooon
Daisyfizzi Mar 30th 2012 9:19AM
I use 'toon' when I'm typing but never when talking out loud, I'm not sure why. If I'm talking about my gals (because since the demise of 'Girlyjump' the male Bloodelf Paladin, they are all gals) I tend to use 'Pandas' for the characters in my main guild (PandaMonium, my main joined over 3 years ago and never looked back). My Hordeside characters are generally just by name, since there are only a couple of them, plus I'm not sure what to shorten 'Klatchian Foreign Legion' to!
wow Mar 30th 2012 9:20AM
The problem is that I have two mains, and 8... not-mains. The not-mains are alts, sure, but I can't go with that for the mains, so collectively they're all my toons.
I can't call them "my girls" because there's two male characters (can't stand the goblin female voice, it's like nails on a chalk board); and they're all at or very near 85 despite two of them being bank alts originally (one sat in Booty Bay at level 1 for ages before I got the levelling bug... walking is just so slooooow). Oh, and while many of them are Alliance, I have some Hordies too, with a warrior on each side (relic of the pre-dual-spec days).
And while I'm British, most of my guildies seem to be Danish - apart from the German main tank. They speak excellent English, but occassionally I'll make some slang remark that has them scratching their heads. So there's something to be said for keeping it simple, and not suddenly introducing "char" to the conversation.
Once a term is common currency, it's hard to shift... unless there's something much better (and/or funnier) to replace it.
wow Mar 30th 2012 10:16AM
When describing my Characters, I usually just use their names.
For example if someone asks me where Alt Aphria is, I say "Aphria is in Ironforge, Loch Modan, etc. Of conversly if I'm on one of my Mains I'll just say "I am in Stormwind Dwarf District AH, Bank, etc.
Shinanji
Yes, there are to wow's here on wow.joystiq.com. I'm the other wow. hehehe
wow Mar 30th 2012 10:24AM
When I register for a site I tend to use part of the site's name at the start of the address so I know if I'm getting spam where it might have originated from. I did try to make the account a "proper" one on the main Joystiq site, with a name and everything, but it doesn't appear to have stuck :-/
I can't even find the avatar option, let alone have it fail on me ;)
evoxpisces Mar 30th 2012 9:19AM
I don't mind the term as I've gotten used to it. Although it seemed kinda awkward the first time I heard it used. Why can't people just say character. "My character" sounds better than "my toon". Or even "my avatar". They are both characters and avatars, not so much cartoons. But whatever like I said, I've gotten used to it.
Shrikesnest Mar 30th 2012 9:22AM
I actually find some (but not all) chatspeak kind of quirky and endearing. "Toon" however can just go right ahead and die.