"This is a spear" "Erm...that's a branch from that tree over there..."

[Clem Rocks]

Do you think the Buffy writers knew anything about weapons?

In Buffy and Fray, you have a "Scythe" which is obviously an axe
and in Chaos Bleeds, you have a "Dagger" which is a great big sword

Has there ever been an official answer about why it looks like the writers don't know their weapons?

 

[white avenger]

That's because they know a lot about writing (well, most of them) but don't necessarily know jack about the elements that go into making a show, especially one like Buffy, which deals quite a bit with weapons and martial arts. They just use whatever looks impressive and to hell with accuracy. A few more to add to your list: the "long bow" that Faith stole from whatever kind of shop she and Buffy broke into was actually a compound bow, and the projectile launched by a crossbow is bolt, not an arrow, and the past tense for "slay" is "slew," not "slayed." Willow, Xander, and Buffy might not have known the proper word, but an educated man like Giles most certainly would have, and would have used the proper word.

 

[Joyce Summers]

and the past tense for "slay" is "slew," not "slayed."

I think Willow asked that about the past tense didn't she? 'The demon Buffy slayed last night...or is it slew?' and Giles informs her that both are correct.
Which if my English Language courses haven't failed me, is right. Slayed was the traditional past tense of 'to slay' but when the dictionary came in in the eighteenth century and we began also to have prescriptive grammar with certain 'rules' the aristocracy began to say 'slew' so as to seperate themselves from the poor classes who continued to say the traditional 'slayed'. Though as time moves on and things change, we've come to accept that rules aren't really rules and we instead have descriptive grammar instead of prescriptive. Meaning that both Slew and Slayed are in fact correct.

That wasn't a rant by the way. Merely an imparting of knowledge. Hehe.

As for the weapons deal, I think it was most of the time hazarding guesses. I think on of the writers said that the scythe was clearly an axe but Joss originally described it as a scythe and so therefore it stayed that way. Haha. I think they theorized that the making-props-people may have just gotten their wires crossed, haha.

 

[Joyce Summers]

white avenger agrees: Dang! Do you mean that all these years i've been an ARISTOCRAT? I'm working at the wrong job!
palabravampiress agrees: Slayer Comma The is correct. Strangely enough, violent words tend to have irregular or multiple forms. Consider, for instance, the use of the word "hanged."

'Is correct'; I love it when people say that about me. Teehee. But glad to know I'm rambling correctly and not just well....rambling. And good comparison example with 'hanged'.

And yes WA, you have been talking the talk of the aristocrat. Or at least that word...Haha

 

[Blondie Bear]

As far as the weapons thing, it could be that the writers got so used to making stuff up that they stopped doing ANY research. 😀

 

[Edmund Blackadder]

As far as the weapons thing, it could be that the writers got so used to making stuff up that they stopped doing ANY research. 😀

You mean they started?

I just always got the impression that Joss and Co rewrote anything they had heard into something they could improve on and make so much better - let we forget Hansel and Gretel

 

[Blondie Bear]

Well, on the commentary for "Helpless," Greenwalt mentioned that when he was writing the kryptonite exchange, he couldn't remember which colors of kryptonite did what, and figured that--rather than looking it up--he'd let Joss catch it if he was wrong. Which, to me, is just lazy writing. It's possible many of the writers got into the habit of relying on Joss to catch their mistakes, and of course, he's a busy man and can't catch all of them, hence the messiness.

 

[Lou]

Well, they did have the added bonus going for them that if the "teenagers" (for the most part) couldn't put their weapons into specific catagories then they, as writers, wouldn't look too bad. Not many regular teenagers can!

There is also the bonus that very few people in the WORLD know how to catagorize weird mystical weapons made to kill mythical demons. Wanna call an Axe like thing with stake things on the end a Scythe? Okay. Obviously the thing predates what I would think of as a scythe! Perhaps I'm wrong!

I thought Angel was slightly better at catagorizing their weapons. I could be wrong, because I don't know all the names for weird weapons. But, I didn't catch as many things that I questioned on Angel as I did on Buffy. So, maybe they weren't as lazy as not caring if the kids look more like "kids".