[kriro]

I guess my pet peeve of "firing an arrow" is also a gun mistake of sorts. It can be found in many fantasy books. A bow is not a gun, there's no gunpowder involved. If a commander orders his archers to "fire" what should they do, set their bows on fire?

[ajdude]

I was just watching Tom Scott's latest video, he mentioned firing a trebuchet and the guide pointed this out that you don't "fire" a trebuchet since it doesn't involve gunpowder, you launch it.

Tom's commentary later was that he disagreed with that sentiment. "I disagree with those potential comments. Words change their meaning overtime. In modern English, you can fire an arrow, you can fire a torpedo, we were gonna fire that trebuchet"

[dn3500]

In the US Navy at least, you don't "fire" a torpedo, you "shoot" it. The lore is that "fire" has a very specific, very urgent meaning on a warship and you don't use that word unless there actually is a fire.

[0xffff2]

There are lots of these hyper-specific "reserved keywords" in the military. Another one from the US Army is "repeat", which is the command for an artillery battery to fire again with the same parameters as their previous barrage. Therefore on the radio we only ever used "say again" to ask someone to repeat their last transmission. Even if no one on the radio had ever or would ever be involved in artillery operations, I imagine it's easier to just train the entire force on a single uniform standard.

[kriro]

There's a decent argument for using today's words even for settings that are no the current world. But for fantasy specifically I find it breaks immersion quite a bit. I'm not convinced by the "language changes over time" line of argument. If you take it to a bit more of an extreme it would also be fine to have characters say "cool" or even use some gen-z-ism etc, because hey words change meaning over time after all.

However, I'm also aware that I'm kind of a hypocrite because I'm totally fine with current world grammar and punctuation for example.

[short_sells_poo]

You raise a good point, but where would we stop? Should movies depicting medieval events use medieval English? It was the lingo at the time after all.

[arjie]

I suppose it’s just a matter of the audience and balancing legibility and plausibility depends on whom you’re writing for. For me, if Legolas was aura farming while Gimli rizzed up Galadriel while Saruman wants to hop on a palantir call that wouldn’t work but perhaps a day comes when that’s enjoyable for someone.

The market for these variations is controlled by IP law, not by demand for writing them or reading them. Emily Wilson’s controversial (for silly reasons, in my opinion) translation of Homer demonstrates what’s available in this genre.

Perhaps one day Gimli will rizz up Galadriel and Sam will say “bye-eeee” as Gollum falls into Mt Doom. One might even get to the stage where an LLM sits in place of the text and translates live into your own hyper-personalized idiolect or more usefully into that which will never take you out of the scene.

[gherkinnn]

As an example, "Hitting it out of the park" has no business in a medieval setting.

[JKCalhoun]

In reverse, "point blank" is an archery term indicating the distance where, with your bow fully drawn, the point of the arrow can be sighted directly on the target. (Closer and you have to bring the point down, farther and you have to bring the point above the target.)

It seems that "point blank" has come to mean simply, "a shot you can't miss".

[folbec]

And what about archer companies doing "volley fire" ? As in what looks like 99% of Hollywood movies.

https://acoup.blog/2025/05/02/collections-why-archers-didnt-...

[amiga386]

The worst archery bollocks I've ever seen in a film is in Timeline (2003)

The French are defending their castle at night from an English siege. They simultaneously exchange volleys of arrows with their tips set on fire. Very cinematic.

Then the dastardly English commander calls for "night arrows". What are those? They're arrows whose tips aren't set on fire.

The French soldiers, knowing there's a pile of archers at their door, and knowing exactly where they are thanks to the attackers all carrying torches, stand waiting for the signal to loose their counter-volley, and are surprised by the "night arrows".

Such nonsense.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcUVOlbNb30

[defrost]

Dip their arrow heads in the fire braziers so the tar / pitch starts to burn, ready for the coming "pull" and "loose" commands?

[alias_neo]

What's the correct term? Loose? I'm sure I've heard that before.

I know nothing about arrows except to identify the pointy end.

[doikor]

It is very tiring to hold back the shot in a position like that. In real life you just wouldn’t do that. And in general your archers know their range and will/should start shooting as soon as they have a target in range without any orders.

The volley fire thing is from black powder musket/rifle days. Basically volleys were used so you can actually seen what you are shooting at (aim) and manuever (hard to move while reloading. Easier if everyone reloads at the same time). Most armies still had small groups sharpshooters/snipers running around the field and taking shots freely.

[kijin]

If most archers start shooting as soon as targets enter the range, and if their individual ranges are clustered around the average, wouldn't that result in a relatively high density of shooting when the distance to a moving group of targets coincides with their average range?

Some movies actually provide a plausible-sounding explanation for the volley fire thing. A dude in charge commands everyone to wait until the unsuspecting enemy enters the kill zone. But even in that case, I guess the archers won't wait with their bows drawn.

[doikor]

The opponent has usually seen bows before too and has a rough idea of their range.

[alias_neo]

> It is very tiring to hold back the shot in a position like that. In real life you just wouldn’t do that

That makes a lot of sense, and is kind of obvious when you think about it. They'd just be wasting energy.

I suppose the way we see it portrayed in film (for some reason it's always LoTR that comes to mind), is for dramatic effect, with scores of arrows flying through the sky at once. But I was always mildly irritated (though without knowing why) by the fact that despite so many arrows flying, the vast majority would miss any target.

[stasomatic]

"Loose" is kind of for a volley of arrows, not aimed, just pointing in the general direction of the attacking horde. Otherwise, you shoot them, not fire them. In English.

[cenamus]

Shoot?

[JKCalhoun]

Release?

[nkrisc]

This is a good example of movies using inaccurate depictions that audiences will easily understand instead of accurate depictions that may confuse them.

Just think of it as a translation.

[enaaem]

I wonder what would happen if someone would make a serie or movie with realistic historical fighting? It might just break all previous works. For example armour that actually works and spears being better than swords.

[JKCalhoun]

Alas, and a missed opportunity for education…

[nkrisc]

Most movies are in the business of entertainment, not education. It’s unfortunate, but such is life.

[asimovDev]

thanks, now I will never be able to stop noticing this when watching anything in English