Posts Tagged misuse

It’s not entirely surprising that the syntactical quality of writing in videogames is hit-and-miss. After all, not every studio can afford an army of English-grads, and many projects are enormous undertakings where something can easily slip through the cracks (especially when localization is involved).

Writing about games, though, should be different. Videogame journalists are primarily writers that are the sole authors of singular pieces relatively small in scope, and they also have an editorial staff backing them up.

Well, one would hope.

I kind of do...

I’m not too intrigued by the idea of consumer reviews vs. artistic critiques — I think both are relevant, although it’s very hard combining them  – but neither approach should be exempt from, to put it quite simply, the proper use of words. Matthew has been known to point out an example or two of this, and I’ve decided to do something similar. Below are three definitions of some frequently misused words in the land of videogame writing.

1). Ironically

This is a tricky one, but, as a general rule of thumb, simple coincidences are not necessarily ironic.

In short, “ironically” is not a synonym for “incidentally” or “conversely.”

As a side note, before Matthew Sturges did all the funny-book stuff, he taught me a bit about definitions and grammar. He also wrote a somewhat famous article about Alanis Morissette’s song “Ironic.” It’s a good read, although whoever archived it seems to have mangled it up a bit.

2). Irreverent

Irreverent does not mean wacky, original or interesting.

Irreverence is basically an antonym of reverence. This means that the act of being irreverent must fly in the face of something that’s revered. Also, it helps to explicitly state the subject of said irreverence — simply saying that a game is irreverent is an extremely vague description.

3). Comprised (of)

“Comprised of” is an incorrect usage and a misunderstanding of the word. Yes, I know it sounds right, but it isn’t.

Comprised (complete with the redundant “of”) is often used to tick off a bullet-point list of a title’s defining qualities. Instead, “consists of” or “is composed of” should be used, i.e., fifty states comprise the United States of America, and the United States of America is composed of fifty states.

It might be a lost battle, though, as “comprised of” is fairly prevalent in all sorts of writing and is well on its way to becoming the next flammable.