universal preposition Thumbnail

universal preposition

  • noun In most MUA input sentences, prepositions are only present to separate the object and the instrument; they don't have any other function apart from this purely syntactic one. Therefore, players always tend to use the same preposition whatever the circumstances, normally choosing the one that is easiest to type. This is known as their universal preposition. In MUD2, it's normally f, although the parser does differentiate between prepositions ('get sand with coracle' and 'get sand from coracle' are two different commands) so it doesn't always work as planned. There is also an 'excluding preposition' in MUD2, which indicates that the instrument is to be excluded from the set of objects under consideration; this gives rise to the unwieldy term universal excluding preposition. See f, wi, x, b.

Copyright © Multi-User Entertainment Ltd. (muse@mud.co.uk)
23rd September 1999: universal_preposition.htm