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Old 01-26-2021, 08:24 AM   #41
bocephus
 
Join Date: Apr 2019
Default Re: The "Tinker" fantasy trope or historical occupation?

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Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl View Post
Unfortunately, there are a whole lot of slurs when you go international, but it has a much more positive meaning in the USA. Tinkerers are considered clever and capable folk who, while not professional inventors, create amusing and odd little contraptions during their spare time. To 'tinker about' is to work on improving something inferior or to set about fixing something broken, so a pharmacist might tinker about to improve the proportions of a drug compound for a customer or a cook might tinker about a failed recipe to see how it might be salvaged.
This might also be true for me, as I am American and even though I live in Europe, I dont live in English speaking Europe.

I would say I agree with this description more than someone that says "Tinker" is an insult. I just not how I know the word. I have never heard it used as an insult in my actual life.
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Old 01-26-2021, 10:10 AM   #42
Fred Brackin
 
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Default Re: The "Tinker" fantasy trope or historical occupation?

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Originally Posted by bocephus View Post
I

The comment about the Army was me dropping a plot hook, not trying to insinuate he's an armorer... which I found an odd thing for you to take away from the discussion, and I would have enjoyed immensely at my table watching you as a PC gallivant off in the wrong direction because you assumed he meant something he never said or even intimated.
I never assumed he was an armorer. I was just very doubtful that he had any of the skills need to do more than (maybe) sharpen my sword and I was pretty sure that the persons who could do repair work on my sword or armor would be somebody else somewhere else. No galloping anywhere in response to this guy.

I might wonder _why_ you had dropped this guy into the game but I'd probably peg him as a con-man out to divest me of some silver.
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Old 01-26-2021, 03:47 PM   #43
Inky
 
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Default Re: The "Tinker" fantasy trope or historical occupation?

It's not that. Speaking as an English speaker in England, I can confirm that that's what the verb "tinker" and the noun "tinkerer" mean in a general sense here, too, and the noun "tinker" just means "the mostly extinct trade of repairing pots and pans". It's not a derogatory term in itself. It's specifically when it's used to indicate the Roma or Travellers that it's considered rude.

This is a guess, since I'm not from Ireland or Scotland and haven't had much chance to observe the word in the wild, but I'd imagine it's like the word "gypsies", which some modern Roma and Travellers also don't care for - it was a name used for them by other people, and since a lot of those people didn't approve of them, they started to use "gypsy" as if it was an insult in itself. My guess is that the same thing has happened with that particular "off-label" use of "tinker". Would be interested if anyone who's from Ireland or Scotland has another explanation, though.

("Gypsies" has the added objection of having started life as a mistake, though I'm guessing a lot of the history-loving users of this forum already know about that! It was short for "Egyptians", back in the Middle Ages, but they're not. Latest thinking is that the Roma's ancestors were probably from India, but definitely not Egypt. Who knows how that idea got started.)
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Old 01-27-2021, 02:53 AM   #44
Michele
 
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Default Re: The "Tinker" fantasy trope or historical occupation?

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Originally Posted by Donny Brook View Post
I live in a large city in North America and a guy in a little cube truck with a workshop in the back rolls through our neighbourhood every couple of months. He drives slowly and clangs a bell, and if you have work for him you hail him over. I don't know the full range of his work but sharpening things is what we've had him do.

I am not from this city, but old people told me they remember it being commonplace here from their earliest memories.
Interesting that it's in a large city. This sort of job has always existed over here, though it was with a bicycle. Nowadays it still exists, but the mostly old and struggling men doing it work in small towns and villages, since in cities you usually have some fixed shop to do all of their small things. In the local language, it's called "gue", which probably comes from Latin, "acuens" - sharpening. They also repair umbrellas and the like.
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Old 01-27-2021, 10:08 AM   #45
talonthehand
 
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Default Re: The "Tinker" fantasy trope or historical occupation?

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Originally Posted by Daigoro View Post
Ok, it seems you and the OP are in the same boat, whereas I can't think of any instances in fantasy fiction or RPGs where itinerant metalsmiths appear as characters of any prominence. Maybe they're a thing in Warhammer FRP?
It's a more recent fantasy series, but Patrick Rothfuss's Kingkiller Chronicles has a recurring theme of traveling tinkers offering trades or services to characters, and it inevitably comes up that they needed whatever was offered later on.
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Old 01-27-2021, 10:39 AM   #46
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Default Re: The "Tinker" fantasy trope or historical occupation?

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Originally Posted by Inky View Post
It's not that. Speaking as an English speaker in England, I can confirm that that's what the verb "tinker" and the noun "tinkerer" mean in a general sense here, too, and the noun "tinker" just means "the mostly extinct trade of repairing pots and pans". It's not a derogatory term in itself. It's specifically when it's used to indicate the Roma or Travellers that it's considered rude.

This is a guess, since I'm not from Ireland or Scotland and haven't had much chance to observe the word in the wild, but I'd imagine it's like the word "gypsies", which some modern Roma and Travellers also don't care for - it was a name used for them by other people, and since a lot of those people didn't approve of them, they started to use "gypsy" as if it was an insult in itself. My guess is that the same thing has happened with that particular "off-label" use of "tinker". Would be interested if anyone who's from Ireland or Scotland has another explanation, though.

("Gypsies" has the added objection of having started life as a mistake, though I'm guessing a lot of the history-loving users of this forum already know about that! It was short for "Egyptians", back in the Middle Ages, but they're not. Latest thinking is that the Roma's ancestors were probably from India, but definitely not Egypt. Who knows how that idea got started.)
Yeah, I'd never heard of tinker being pejorative - I know that the guys we generally called gypsies call themselves Rom and often preferred that to gypsy, but down here in England tinker is a job (albeit a mostly extinct one) and I wasn't aware the Scots usage was negative. I was also under the impression that the Rom were the only ethnic group that were typically found on the roads and other travelling communities were more cultural than ethnic. Those communities, I am aware of pejorative terms for, but this is not a place to discuss them. For added fun, there is also, apparently, a history of conflict between them and the Rom.

Going back to the Fantasy usage, wasn't this the trade of at least some of the dwarves in The Hobbit?

Somewhere in between, for those who have - or might wish to read Anne Baer's Medieval Woman: Village Life in the Middle Ages - probably best described as "historical fiction" - there is a pretty well depicted visit from a travelling metalworker (what we might call a tinker), who is shown to be both a valued craftsman, a welcome source of news, a subject of suspicion (since he's not from anywhere near the village), and an object of pity (since he doesn't belong to a community). The book is actually well worth reading in its own right for a (moderately) historical depiction of the life of a peasant in early medieval England.

Last edited by The Colonel; 01-27-2021 at 10:47 AM.
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Old 01-27-2021, 11:17 AM   #47
AlexanderHowl
 
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Default Re: The "Tinker" fantasy trope or historical occupation?

Paradoxically, poor roads likely meant more demand for traveling crafters, as poor infrastructure prevented villagers from traveling to local towns to receive similar services (and prevented the evolution of towns away from areas without shipping via water). As roads improved, more towns could be supported in an area, as food distribution became more efficient, and more villagers could travel to towns for services, as the effective cost of traveling was reduced. Of course, traveling crafters could likely offer cheaper services than town crafters, but the continued improvement of infrastructure would likely progressively reduce their business until they could not continue to make a profit.
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Old 01-27-2021, 11:35 AM   #48
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Default Re: The "Tinker" fantasy trope or historical occupation?

A few posts asked about pop culture context: my sole contribution is the fact that the Ultima series of games (from about 1985 to late 1990s) had "tinker" as a PC or party member class/profession. The major NPC Iolo and his wife Gwenno were tinkers, and usually vital to the player's main quest. Later in the game series they were the ones who brought "new gadgets", including crossbows (the latest in military innovations at that tech level).

As far as "tinker" being a derogatory word in parts of the UK, it is sadly regrettable that linguistic changes bring new unacceptable and disrespectful undertones to previously neutral word usage. John Le Carré's finest novel might lose some of its recognizability if we had to censor it to merely "Tailor, Soldier, Spy".
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Old 01-27-2021, 12:29 PM   #49
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Default Re: The "Tinker" fantasy trope or historical occupation?

In general, being a traveling crafter is a less pleasant life than being a settled crafter, so 'tinker' isn't going to be a high status occupation.

Interesting thing I just found out: the word 'journeyman' (the rank between apprentice and master in medieval craft guilds) does not actually generally refer to being a traveler, but in some areas being a wandering journeyman was considered an important part of training.
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