I don't understand why Pilot (Space Craft) appears over and over again in Rogue Trader. In Dark Heresy, the properly written Pilot (Spacecraft) was used, and this also carries over into the write-up for the Void Born in Rogue Trader. In English, aircraft, spacecraft, and even watercraft are all written as joined worlds. I could understand if they had opted for Pilot (Voidcraft) to keep with the WH40K feel, but I can't for the life of me understand why they used the split form that they did. If this is some oddity of British spelling, I can't seem to find any reference to it, and since it didn't show up in Dark Heresy, I'm lead to believe it's just a quirly thing that someone overlooked.

After looking things over a bit more, I think I'm going to go with calling the skill Pilot (Voidcraft) to match up with the Void Born Voidfarers - including those with Trade (Voidfarer) - that look sharp wearing their Void Suits. Besides, if the term Aircraft has been replaved with 'Flyers' then I see no reason that Spacecraft can't be similarly replaced.

If it makes you any happier...

Actually, my players seem to prefer using Aircraft and Spacecraft over Flyers and Space Craft. I can't argue against those being acceptable terms, so that's what we'll be using.

Out of everything that can be complained about, is a single space really that important? I've been complaining incessantly these past few months over issue's we're all aware of, but now I've got the book I have to say it's remarkably well done. Less typos than I came to expect, lots of content considering what had to be put in etc etc

There's also the use of double parenthesis - such as Talented (Navigation (Warp)) rather than the correct form of Talented (Navigation [Warp]). These things bug me.

HappyDaze said:

Both are fairly common, actually, but I've never seen anything to suggest that one is more right than the other. It might well be a regional thing...

Every source I've found online - and everything I've been taught - says that you alternate parenthesis and brackets in English - double parenthesis are incorrect. Likewise, spacecraft is a word in English with a definite accepted usage while space craft is not.

Space craft would be the art of the crafting of space (a bit clumsily worded), so its meaning is quite different to spacecraft.

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As another little annoying thing is the switch back and forth between "dorsal 1, prow 1" and "1 dorsal, 1 prow" in the starships section. Just pick one and stick with it!

I'm also curious as to why we have "Arch-militant' rather than "Archmilitant" and "Void-master" rather than "Voidmaster" throughout the book. The hyphens seem out of place and needless.

BTW, is the 'Arch' in Arch-militant/Archmilitant intended to be pronounced as a 'k' sound (as in archangel) or as a 'ch' sound (as in archenemy)?

I think it would be ch, as in Archenemy.

Whilst I hate inconsistency, so I'm with you there, your core points are not correct. Spacecraft, space-craft and space craft are all perfectly fine and there is no rule about doubling of parenthesis but using brackets makes it easier to read, for sure. I personally prefer "voidcraft", so as to remain in-universe but so long as a player knows what skills his character has and how to use them, it doesn't matter what names he uses. As for 'arch' it's almost always pronounced "-tsh" rather than "-k" in modern English usage but should be the latter as it comes from classical Greek (technically it ought to be pronounced the way we would do in Scotland, as in loch, etc).

The idea of universally prescribed usages is both modern in the extreme and a little foolish when considering a living language but it is very in keeping with the WH40K theme, of course... ;¬) Just pick one and stick with it, which is what should have happened here in the rulebook (see what I said about proofreading in another thread).