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Message: <blockquote data-quote="prosfilaes" data-source="post: 5964677" data-attributes="member: 40166">"Apple" is another word for a baseball. Are we claiming that baseball fans have assumed control over the English language, or do we simply understand the people in a certain field sometimes use words in an unusual manner?In any case, I stuck "gamist" into Google Books*, and I'm not seeing any use for gamist prior to the 21st century. (It's swamped by polygamist, bigamist and other such words that got broken by a hyphen.) Given that the Forge lists the date of "GNS and Other Matters of Role-playing Theory" as 2001-10-14, that may be the first use of the word.Yes, finally I found a couple uses that predate that. "Software reviews on file" in 1986 used it in the sense of gamer, and "Collegiate microcomputer" in 1988 said "Levy is probably the world's foremost computer gamist. His works have been the standards that others have followed.", so I guess they used gamist to mean game maker. I think that amplifies my point; prior to GNS, gamist was a very rare word without established meaning, and Ron Edwards probably was not aware of prior usage. If you can't give a meaning to a word you made up, what can you do?(And I'm not sure how gamers who play a game that defines dungeon†, goblin‡, and hobgoblin§, to pick a few, as aberrantly as it does, really get to complain about the misuse of words.)* <a href="http://books.google.com/books?q=gamist" target="_blank">gamist - My library - Google Books</a>†1913 Websters: A close, dark prison, commonly, under ground, as if the lower apartments of the donjon or keep of a castle, these being used as prisons.‡ 1913 Websters: An evil or mischievous spirit; a playful or malicious elf¶; a frightful phantom; a gnome||.§ 1913 Websters: A frightful goblin; an imp; a bugaboo; also, a name formerly given to the household spirit, Robin Goodfellow¶ 1913 Websters: An imaginary supernatural being, commonly a little sprite,  much like a fairy; a mythological diminutive spirit, supposed to haunt hills and wild places, and generally represented as delighting in mischievous tricks.|| 1913 Websters: 1. An imaginary being, supposed by the Rosicrucians to inhabit the inner parts of the earth, and to be the guardian of mines, quarries, etc. 2. A dwarf; a goblin; a person of small stature or misshapen features, or of strange appearance.</blockquote>

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