This has been on my mind for a while...parents are always complaining that video games ruin a child's mind. Well, not when they contain interesting words! I can think of a few words I've picked up from video games that I would have not encountered otherwise, or else learned much later. Here's a sampling:

bandicoot: would this animal be as well-known without Crash Bandicoot bringing it to fame?
ocarina: from The Legend of Zelda, Ocarina of Time for N64. I played the whole game wondering if they'd made up the word ocarina, which was this flute you played as part of the game. I said to Dag one night, it sounds Italian, but it means "little goose". Lo and behold, I looked it up the next morning - the name refers to the egg-shape of the instrument, and it's a real instrument!
prophylactic: from Leisure Suit Larry. I played this computer game when I was too young to know this particular euphemism for condom. Of course by the end of the game you've figured it out, but you can't figure out how to pronounce it!
lemming: from the game Lemmings (you have to lead a group of Lemmings to a goal, as I recall, without them all falling off a cliff). Otherwise who would have heard of this particular animal?
minesweeper: I played this game for years, not thinking about the name, until seeing something on the news about minesweepers, sweeping the land for unexploded mines. It took me that long to realize that the game was named after this activity.

Anyone else got any video game (or other game) words you can think of?

A personal favourite is "lay down misere" from 500.

OK - it wasn't a video game for hundreds of years but it is now....

stales

re minesweeping -

I think the phrase applied originally more to clearing of ocean/harbor mines than land mines, though of course mankind's fiendish ingenuity expands and language duly follows.

Any Navy people out there who can comment?

Any Navy people out there who can comment?

Well, I'm not navy but I have read quite a bit about naval activities.

Mines were first used in great numbers during the first world war. Since the British navy depended on clear shipping lanes to transport troops and equipment to France, Flanders and the Dardanelles the German, Austrian and Turkish navies promoted the production of specialist mine laying ships. To counter this the British developed a new type of small ship to accompany destroyers and carriers - the minesweeper. The first ones probably consisted of nothing more than hastily converted sloops but, as the war progressed, it was clear that equal priority had to be given to minesweeper production as to the production of destroyers.

The intervening years between the wars allowed for more advanced naval teachniques, technology such as the sonar and ship designs to evolve and the present minesweeper design came into being.

Canasta gave us the verb, "to MELD" - a wonderfully evocative word, which has crept into the language, quietly and unobtrusively and has now melded with all the other incomers.

Long before Canasta was invented (I remember the Canasta craze as 1950 or so), didn't we meld in Gin Rummy, and Pinochle, and probably a lot of games even more venerable? Maybe even Mah Jongg, which is going back quite a way indeed.

Interestingly, bartleby lists the two meanings of meld as coming from two different sources:

meld = to present a card-combination for scoring: probably German melden, to announce
meld = merge, or merger: perhaps blend of melt and weld.

I've never played Leisure Suit Larry, but I know the guy who wrote the original program.

I haven't played many video games. But I did learn of the word mugwump (political independent) in a text-based game maybe 25 or 26 years ago. I remember assuming for years that it was a complete fabrication. Had to write our own version of the program on a pdp8.

I learned of the word plover (some kinda bird, maybe a sea bird, if i recall) a few years later from a text based game called adventure that ran on a pdp11/34.

I'm sure there are other words, but I can't recall at the moment.

I strongly encourage my own kids to play video games (as well as other computer games) and don't limit their kind or usage. Let them play Duke Nukem, for example, and introduced them to Rogue Spear. Neither interest ever took off (they're girls), but they're really into The Sims these days.


k

I've never played Leisure Suit Larry, but I know the guy who wrote the original program.

how odd, i just sold a bunch of old PC games on eBay, including a LSL. so you know Al Lowe? do me a flavor and ask him why he never made a LSL IV. those were fun =)

i also remember the text-based games ~ remember how avant garde they seemed? my dad and i spent hours playing "escape from rungistan" and "mission impossible" (anyone recall either of those?). The *really advanced ones would have ASCII graphics, or even timers (in Escape from Rungistan, towards the end, you found yourself in a pot of boiling water surrounded by cannibals, and had to *quickly type "predict eclipse" {try typing that fast as a 6 year old!) in order to save your skin.)

okay, here's the word part of this post:

i thought you guys might get a kick out of a brochure for "Prodigy" (the fledgling internet) i found in one of the old games boxes this morning. the system requirements:

~ at least one megabyte of RAM
~ Operating System 4.1 or higher
~ at least one 800K disk drive, or hard drive with 750k (that's not a typo) available space
~ 1200 or 2400 bps modem (!)
~ monochrome or color monitor (remember when they were green on black?)

The frightening thing is that this form was printed in 1990

tempus fugit

my, how time flies!

No, I know Chuck Benton. I think I said "the guy who wrote." More accurately, I should have said, "One of the creators." I think he was mainly a designer, though I suspect he did do some coding.

k

A friend of mine from back in engineering school went back for his doctorate and had to take a class that had some younger guys in it.

The prof, who knew my friend, asked the class what size was the first hard drive they ever owned. They went all around the class until they got to my friend who said, "Five megabytes," to which this kid in front of him quickly responds in a really authoritative voice to correct the poor, misguided, computer-illiterate, newbie elder, "I *think* you mean five *gigabytes*!"

I've always disliked the word newbie .



k

mugwump (political independent)

...often applied derisively to someone whose views changed to match those of his immediate audience, who had no views of his own. The image evoked was of a strange creature sitting on a fence with his "mug" on one side and his "wump" on the other...

Or is that just Yet Another Urban Myth?

Ambrose Bierce; Devil's Dictionary: MUGWUMP, n.: In politics one afflicted with self-respect and addicted to the vice of independence. A term of contempt.

wofa, my uninformed guess is that what you mention is, as you speculate, an urban myth. I'm not familiar with the "vicar of bray" usage, and bartleby gives the etymology as "Massachusett mugguomp, mummugguomp, war leader".

text based game called adventure

As it is one of my recent interests, I should add that the genre of "text-based games" is still alive and well, but these days is usually called "interactive fiction" (or IF). The new masterpieces of IF are created by hobbyists who spend months if not years writing and coding intricate "games" and then release them as freeware to a small community of fans. Today's "games" range from the traditional puzzle-based quests (like "Curses" and "Anchorhead") to more narrative or atmospheric pieces (like "Photopia" or "Galatea").

If you'd like more info about interactive fiction, please PM me or check out SPAG (the Society for the Promotion of Adventure Games) at http://www.sparkynet.com/spag/frame.html or XYZZYnews (XYZZY was a "magic word" in "Adventure/Colossal Cave") at http://www.xyzzynews.com.

I'll check those out! And a happy plugh to you, too.

(Plugh being another magic word in the same game.)

It didn't occur to me that anyone might still be playing these types of games, let alone be constructing them.

thanks,
k

Sorry to chime in late...been away.

lemming: from the game Lemmings (you have to lead a group of Lemmings to a goal, as I recall, without them all falling off a cliff). Otherwise who would have heard of this particular animal?

My uncle lived for many years on Baffin Island in the NW Territories of Canada. He told me many stories about the lemmings and their reputed suicide mission each year. Although, they don't really run to the cliffs and jump off in droves, I have always found it a fascinating tale.

In looking for info on lemmings, I discovered (warning--cross threading) the following:

Ode to a Lemming (the Limerick)
by John H. Roberts

There once was a lemming named Sam
Who said "A lemming I am!"
When faced with a cliff,
His body went stiff.
And they scraped him off the ground like spam.

Ode to a Lemming (The Haiku)
by Patrick I. White

Lemming suicide
running off cliffs together
wet, furry lemmings

For more lemming poetry, see The Lemmings Poetry Club: http://homepage.fcgnetworks.net/patrick/lemming.html
[should this be in the animal thread?-e]