"The Legend of Zelda's Master Sword gets all the attention, but one shouldn't discount Link's brilliant sagittipotence."
"With an authoritative rumble of his gun's chainsaw, Marcus Fenix's supellectile skills are put to the test against a drably colored sofa in Gears of War."
"Naked Snake's frutescent adeptness contributes to his low-profile and sneaky nature in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater."
Whoa. Did a dictionary just land on my head? Is my situational dyslexia acting up again? Was my brain secretly replaced with that of a grandiloquent British gentleman of the 1800s?
Nope. I've merely stumbled upon the dimunitive and surprisingly entertaining Save the Words website. Want to learn a fresh approach to writing about video games? Read on to find out.
The brainy folks behind the Oxford English Dictionary started the website as both a storage space and an exhibit for disused words. Every year, antiquated words are sadly yanked out of dictionaries to fade into obscurity. Luckily, Oxford's ambitious project not only shelters these words from oblivion, but it also can considerably expand your terminology — say, the next time you write about a game.
We all know that words provide vibrancy and color to language; it's terribly dissapointing, then, that the vocabulary of today's games media is dismally limited. Overworked words such as groundbreaking, phenomenal, and mediocre — let's not forget emo — have quickly lost their luster when repeated ad nauseam across the industry. To echo a certain presidential slogan festooned across bumper stickers, it's time for change.
Save the Words' spaghetti bowl of distinctly-defined (albeit complex-sounding) words saves the day. Being able to neatly describe Link's great ability in archery (sagittipotence), Marcus's talent for handling furniture (suppellectile) the way he knows best, and Snake's penchant for blending into his shrub-filled surroundings (frutescent) is loads of fun and suitably fitting.
Go ahead, dive into the website and see what words (literally) jump out at you. Then, in the comments section below, write a short blurb (one or two sentences) about your favorite game that incorporates at least one word from the website. In closing, I'll avunculize for a moment: Don't worry if you dip into quibbleism or boreism — this is a locupletative exercise! (In other words, have fun.)