Someone already said that I'm just being a smartass. But there is actual confusion coming from the misuse of the term. Just the other day someone was asking what the remaster means when it says "no errata." I don't see any justification for people thinking its OK to misuse a term and cause actual confusion for new players of the game. For some MECCG players, the term "errata" seems to be (mistakenly) synonymous with any change to how the rules or a card works. And the bigger issue is that this then causes confusion about what a "clarification" means with respect to "errata," which is what leads to most of the confusion. You can see this confusion in the old rulings (and not so old rulings) from various MECCG player groups. I had this confusion myself because of the MECCG discussions I read. If only errata are changes and clarifications are not changes then dozens of rulings don't make sense.
You can see this in the ARV discussion, the list of CoE errata (most are actual errata, but some are not), statements on the MECCG.es remaster ("these cards are remastered and have NO errata"), and DC reprints reflecting errata labeled as "errata." Besides ICE (who used the term correctly), I noticed that the old Unofficial Errata Proposals (UEP) used the term correctly. So maybe the confusion got introduced somewhere between. I am still trying to find the source of the confusion so if you know please share (seems to be around 2011).
CoE "errata" 1 is not errata. CoE Errata 2 is errata.
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Why does it matter? Because people think that only errata can "change" the rules/cards even though ICE specifically stated that "clarifications" change how the rules/cards work. A clarification is sometimes an explanation but not always. Mistakenly using the term "errata" as synonymous with any change perpetuates this confusion. And misuse of the term causes further confusion when people apply errata to a publication for which the errata was not a change to. Errata is a change to a specific publication, not a change to how a card/rule works in general. You can see this confusion arise in discussions of Traitor, Lure of Nature, and more.
Errata to cards is easy. But errata to the rules is more difficult because of the interactions. Actually attempting to issue "errata" (an actual change to published text) would highlight some of the reasons why so-called "errata" does not actually work. For example, CoE Errata #1 and #9 both don't work because the rules still say otherwise.
Also, some have said that the meaning of a word has changed. Maybe some people want to use a word different but as long as we are talking about ICE's "errata" and "clarifications" then it makes sense to understand how they used the term. And their use was proper.
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"Errata" is a list of errors in a specific printing and their corrections. Usually you might find a piece of paper inserted into a 2nd or later printing of a text book, though it could be errors noticed after a publication was sent off to the printer. It looks like this:er·ra·tum
/eˈrädəm/
noun
plural noun: errata
an error in printing or writing.
a list of corrected errors appended to a book or published in a subsequent issue of a journal.
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In the introduction to the Errata and Clarification published by ICE, they explained how the terms are used. An errata means that the actual text is wrong and the text is being changed. A clarification means that there is ambiguity and ICE explains what they meant for the rule/card to mean. Part of the confusion is ICE's fault as they were hesitant to issue "errata" (known for being the cause of death for their contemporary, the INWO CCG at the time). Instead, ICE issued clarifications for anything that didn't need a text change, or even things that did need text changes (many examples, see clarifications to Assassin, Abductor, Ash Mountain, and that's not even all the As with game-changing clarifications).
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There are other words to use. "Revision," "Reprint," "Remake." The word errata should be reserved for its actual meaning and usage.
