Grrargh...

[woodwardiocom]

-Y'know, I'm aware that languages evolve. That new words supplant old, that phrases become hyphenated, then joined, then shortened. That slang becomes vernacular becomes accepted. That foreign words eventually lose their italics and become just another round of espresso with the samurai. That sometime in the next decade L33T is probably going to be the first word in our dictionaries that must be spelled with numbers.

-But when I see someone use "rolegaming" for "the hobby of roleplaying games" I flinch with despair for our culture. It's an ugly, silly, divisive, "by inventing a word I can pretend I'm doing a formal study of roleplaying games instead of, y'know, actually being down there in the muck with those gamers and fans I mostly despise" neologism, and I'll have no truck with it.

(And it only generates 828 hits on Google, so those propagating it are apparently having no success, thankgawd.)

Comments

[darlene-ford.livejournal.com]

Yuck.

[maedbh7.livejournal.com]

Incidentally, 'leet' is already a word in the dictionary. Look it up.

As for inventing words, I am all for it, but only when done by people who have a firm grasp of the English language, its roots, a basic grasp of etymology, and at least a passing familiarity with linquistics.

As such, 'role gaming' (in print) doesn't annoy me, as it follows a natural folk etymology procession from 'board gaming' and 'strategy gaming'. However, when spoken, it still doesn't clarify enough as 'roll gaming' and 'role gaming' when spoken sound the same. Thus, I prefer to keep the term set as "roleplaying games", "doing roleplay", "LARPing" or (in some circles) "gaming" because they more accurately convey the necessary information, both when spoken and in print.-H...

[woodwardiocom.livejournal.com]

Incidentally, 'leet' is already a word in the dictionary.

-Yah, but I meant "L33T" which is, in common usage, a valid alternate spelling. I suspect our dictionary editors are going to be very resistant to including words spelled with numbers.

(And we'll just leave manor-courts out of this.)

[ptevis.livejournal.com]

Neologisms annoy me to no end. To me they represent people's inability or unwillingness to communicate effectively with the perfectly adequate tools already at their disposal.