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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8936337" data-attributes="member: 6790260">Which, for me, is one of the reasons why terms that are ready to hand and do not have obvious faults are at least worth being considered, even if they are imperfect or carry some connotations that are undesirable. My "FFV" vs "meatgrinder" example seems productive here."FFV" ("Fantasy F#$@ing Vietnam") clearly has issues. It's vulgar, for one, and it makes a direct and explicit comparison between an entertainment activity that (ideally) should be fun for everyone involved, and an incredibly ugly, pointless, horrific conflict that ultimately achieved absolutely nothing beyond killing a lot of people and causing future problems (e.g. the claimed association between Agent Orange and birth defects.) I don't think there's any way one can use "FFV" and not mean something pejorative by it.By comparison, "meatgrinder" (sometimes two words) is a term used by the general public for all sorts of violent and/or destructive things. It is usually associated with war, but not always. Metaphorically, an office job (say, at a call center) with an extremely high turnover rate may be referred to as a "meatgrinder," because one can draw an analogy between it and sending soldiers out to their doom. The term "bloodbath" is another one frequently used metaphorically to refer to something highly destructive/damaging even though no literal violence is involved. Generally, while "meatgrinder" has a negative connotation in the sense that it is implicitly needless death/destruction/damage, that connotation surely must be lessened in the context of a game, where the entities killed/destroyed/damaged are not actual people.Hence, if someone were to complain about the use of the term "meatgrinder" because it has negative connotations, I would feel justified in responding that the term is both common use, and appropriate to the context; it is impossible to talk about the high and random lethality of early editions without recognizing that it is both high and random, and it is that very combination which is captured by "meatgrinder." To remove the negative connotation (the element of "needless/pointless/unsatisfying") would be to remove a key part of what makes it descriptive in the first place.</blockquote>

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