Thought for the day.

I was amused to find this paragraph wedged in the midst of an article on the BBC website.

Local media suggest the “orcs” were a reference to the goblins in the literature of JRR Tolkien, while the “turantons” may refer to a figure out of World of Warcraft.

As m’colleague rightly pointed out, the local media might want to consider that the “orcs” were a reference to the… orcs, in the literature of Tolkien.

For me, I had to wonder if ‘turantons’ lost something in translation, because I can’t think of anything relevant in World of Warcraft with that name. They may, of course, have meant Tauntaun, but clearly that’s an affront to all nerdkind to mix up such mythical beasts and their origins.

I think the lesson here is that media outlets need to employ a Nerd Correspondent, although I have to say that the media’s current method of taking a guess and then blaming it on World of Warcraft doesn’t seem so terribly far off from the MMO blogging norm; maybe MMO bloggers are journalists after all.