For years, I've felt that gaming has helped my vocabulary. Final Fantasy, in particular, taught me so many religious and mythological references as I grew up. The Civilization series introduced me to a lot of history. But yesterday, I had a moment when gaming and vocabulary really came to my mind. I was watching the Great British Baking Show, and one of the contestants was designing a pie to depict the Kohinoor, a diamond that -- according to Wikipedia -- is part of the British crown jewels and was ceded to Queen Victoria following a war in the 19th century.
I had only ever heard of the Koh-i-Noor (intentional alternate spelling) once before this: as a treasure demon in Persona 5. It was great to watch the show and think, "oh, I learned about that from a game!"
How has gaming improved your vocabulary?
EDIT: Per my post later in the thread, I fixed the title.
I learned about defenestration, halberd and other medieval weapons/terminology through D&D.
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Indubitably.
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Civilization and RPGs generally helped my vocabulary a lot, especially since they introduce a lot of obscure words and names and I generally want to know how those names were made. And I also play Bookworm and other word games so those really help, too.
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Boss battles in general have inspired many a creative swear, so yes, videogames do assist with vocab.
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This thread gives me conniptions.
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cyrax wrote:Looks like Cartoonin continues to be a stud.
muttonchop wrote:The Big D screen is just cartoonin aiming a projector at his genitals
I think that is too broad a thing to say. If you are playing a text heavy game, or set of games, I think you could make that argument. If you play Fortnite, probably not so much.
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oilypenguin: That is a terrible joke and I'd ask you to be ashamed of yourself but you've been around here long enough that I know you'll be proud of it.
detroit20: UptoIsomorphism has it right.
I realized after starting this thread that I should have phrased my question as “how has gaming improved your vocabulary?” I was interested in hearing about the fun words and concepts we learned through our hobby, and less a high-level debate.
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Per my previous comment - I learned the term "f*ck wallet" when my wife yelled it at the final boss of Twilight Princess.
It has since become the worst insult that can be leveled at a person en casa del Jonman.
You've never known true joy until you've shaken a lich stick at someone.
I've learned a decent amount of Spanish from playing Dota. Mostly things about garbage, feces and mothers.
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The only reason I’m only even close to being up to date on slang is because of video games.
That is an excellent phrase that I definitely will use in the future!
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I learned what an aria and a rondo were.
I learned the expression "ludonarrative dissonance".
Not sure but I learned a lot about what I can do to any number of mothers, including my own.
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I’m sure there had been plenty of words added to my vocabulary from games. But I’ve also been an avid reader all my life, so I there are only a few specific words that I’m certainly I’ve learned specifically from a game.
Aside from the standards of “dysentery” and “gazebo”, “Verbose” and “vivisection” come to mind.
Now proper nouns from history, mythology, and religions that I learned from games are much easier to find.
I guess I learned more englisch words from Infocom adventures than from my english teacher ...