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<blockquote data-quote="lewpuls" data-source="post: 8179179" data-attributes="member: 30518">Nowadays there does seem to be hostility, bordering on sheer ignorance, when someone tries to define something. No, it isn't &quot;gatekeeping (&quot;the activity of controlling, and usually limiting, general access to something&quot;) and tribalism.&quot; And I personally don't care what you think or do individually, nor am I trying to convince anyone of anything.Much discussion about games revolves around semantics, because when one person uses a word, they actually mean something quite different from what another person means. So much of the discussion is misunderstanding.The word &quot;theme&quot;, for example, means so many different things that the word is useless because it only causes confusion. (See my screencast &quot;The many meanings of the word 'Theme'&quot; [MEDIA=youtube]eq-vnHFG00k[/MEDIA] Similarly, &quot;fun&quot; has a different meaning for every person. One person's fun is another person's boredom.To take a non-game word, &quot;bi-annual&quot; has been corrupted. Originally it meant once every two years, but about half of people now think it means twice a year (semi-annual), so many readers/listeners will be confused if you use it. Another is verbal, which once (usefully) meant &quot;in words, whether written or oral.&quot; Now verbal has come to mean oral, to many people. Using the word verbal is confusing, and there is no word that means what verbal used to mean.If a word comes to mean a very broad set of things, then it becomes pointless in most contexts. For example &quot;game&quot; is often used synonymously with &quot;play&quot;, which only renders the word game redundant and useless. The point of trying to narrow a definition of a word is to make it useful in discussion.Resort to the idea of &quot;gatekeeping&quot; (again, &quot;the activity of controlling, and usually limiting, general access to something&quot;) tends to be a reflection of someone who disagrees, or who feels left out. It rarely actually exists.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="lewpuls, post: 8179179, member: 30518"] Nowadays there does seem to be hostility, bordering on sheer ignorance, when someone tries to define something. No, it isn't "gatekeeping ("the activity of controlling, and usually limiting, general access to something") and tribalism." And I personally don't care what you think or do individually, nor am I trying to convince anyone of anything. Much discussion about games revolves around semantics, because when one person uses a word, they actually mean something quite different from what another person means. So much of the discussion is misunderstanding. The word "theme", for example, means so many different things that the word is useless because it only causes confusion. (See my screencast "The many meanings of the word 'Theme'" [MEDIA=youtube]eq-vnHFG00k[/MEDIA] Similarly, "fun" has a different meaning for every person. One person's fun is another person's boredom. To take a non-game word, "bi-annual" has been corrupted. Originally it meant once every two years, but about half of people now think it means twice a year (semi-annual), so many readers/listeners will be confused if you use it. Another is verbal, which once (usefully) meant "in words, whether written or oral." Now verbal has come to mean oral, to many people. Using the word verbal is confusing, and there is no word that means what verbal used to mean. If a word comes to mean a very broad set of things, then it becomes pointless in most contexts. For example "game" is often used synonymously with "play", which only renders the word game redundant and useless. The point of trying to narrow a definition of a word is to make it useful in discussion. Resort to the idea of "gatekeeping" (again, "the activity of controlling, and usually limiting, general access to something") tends to be a reflection of someone who disagrees, or who feels left out. It rarely actually exists. [/QUOTE]

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