Games Journalism, Big Words and Talking Clearly

I was looking through the Giantbomb frontpage, when in the corner I saw the word “Foucaldian” and had to do a double-take. For those lucky enough not to know, Foucault is a notoriously difficult to understand French cultural theorist, cited in university textbooks and academic journals across the globe – and he now can add Austin Walker's twitter feed to that list. A similar double-take happened the other day when I saw the tweet “But consensus is most valuable when it's understood descriptively, not prescriptively, and strategically, not ontologically” (talking about how it's a good thing for games reviewers to not all repeat the same opinions).

Now, Austin Walker's a clever guy who knows his stuff, and often seems to have interesting things to say about it. In all the video/audio Giantbomb content I've seen him in he's spoken intelligently and – importantly – clearly. But why does he sometimes couch his writing in impenetrable semi-academic jargon?

This isn't just a problem with Austin, and he's not actually a particularly bad offender. Many of the articles that Patrick used to link to on Worth Reading would be full of this sort of stuff. Of course the trend is much wider than videogames writing, but the fact that it's bled into videogames writing unresisted is starting to annoy me.

The term “ludonarrative dissonance”, and the enthusiasm with which it was taken up, is probably the clearest example of this kind of thing I can think of – “gameplay-story dissonance” would almost certainly have been a better term, and wouldn't even have cost any more syllables! Fortunatley it seems to be going out of use, though I'm afraid that might be more because the concept has been talked to death than because people have decided to write clearly.

When you're writing, I'd say one of the more important bits is communicating your ideas to your readers. I (thankfully) haven't ever had to debate moral philosophy on the internet – but if I ever did, I would probably say something like “I think that actions should be judged by their consequences, rather than by what we think is 'right' in the abstract”. What I wouldn't say is “I subscribe to a kind of consequentialist utilitarianism, rather than Kantian deontology.” Mainly because I wouldn't expect anyone to understand me! And when I can express the same idea in a much simpler way, why bother with the jargon?

People often say that big, technical words are important because they let you be more specific in your ideas. But again, you have to think of what your readers can be expected to understand! I study physics, and I would never write a metaphor that relied on the technical distinctions between “momentum”, “force” and “impulse” because no matter how specific I was being I know most readers wouldn't pick up on that – I'd have to either do a bunch of extra explanation, or just phrase myself in a different way. I don't want complicated or subtle ideas to get dumbed down just so that they're easy for me to read, but I'd like to think clarity doesn't have to be at the expense of content.

Sorry if this turned into a bit of a rant. What annoys me is that there often is lots of interesting stuff being said about videogames. It's not as though writers need write in an unnecesarily complicated way for their stuff to look substantial. Does anyone else feel the same way? Are other people getting more from these sophisticated writing styles than I am?

EDIT: Looking some of these comments, I may have thrown in a red herring when I used the term "big words" in my title. It was more clear/unclear writing I was talking about, not just common/uncommon terms. I actually quite like learning "jargon", especially when it's specific and useful, but it's a problem when non-jargon would make the same point equally economically, and also be clearer. Simillarly, writing that doesn't use particularly obscure words can still be done in such a way that makes it very difficut to understand (like the discussion of descriptive/prescriptive understandings of consensus). I think people should try and set out their ideas in as clear and easy-to-understand a way as possible - and if maximum clarity involves technical terms, I'm totally fine with that. But it often doesn't!

Sometimes when you're writing something you need to use bigger, less commonly used, words. Since you mentioned them it would be like using the word force when specifically someone is talking about momentum. It's better to be accurate than be simple sometimes.

And if anything it means we all get to learn some new vocabulary.

I agree that there is a trend among intellectuals and academia to use advanced terminology to obstruct rather than clarify. It's kind of like filtering a statement through google translate multiple times - each layer distills the actual meaning and leaves room for interpretation of the used terminology (which has no place in intellectual discourse). This of course works in your favor if your arguments can't stand ground in a simple form, since you can always blame counterarguments on 'misinterpretation', and repeat tautologies as some kind of a profound truth.

However, I think Austin has been doing a pretty good job of not doing that. He seems to have a genuine desire to have a dialogue with the audience instead of patronize them with 'stuff he learned in university'.

That's not just exclusive to game journalism though, most social sciences use convulated terminology to transform subjective conclusions into profound truths.

@finaldasa: I don't deny that uncommon, technical words are often very useful - my problem is when they're used in situations when smaller, more common ones would be equally easy to use (or even sometimes better and clearer). And often complicated or obscure words can be less specific than the simple alternatives - Foucauldian could mean almost anything. I guess it just sometimes feels like writers trying to "talk up" the complexity of their ideas - which is the opposite to what clear communicating should be. I wouldn't like it if people felt they had to do that.

I don't mind "big words" interspersed into articles about games. But of course you have to know your audience. If these articles read like PhD dissertations it would probably be pretty annoying.

I am only bothered by it if the authors in question don't use the words properly. The "ostensibly" plague that hit the GB office was particularly irritating.

It's good to learn new words.

@imsh_pl said:

I can speak quite a bit to this as a social scientist myself and I think both sides are right on this one. Jargon inherently obfuscates and it does play a role in the barrier between any scientific work and public knowledge. The same argument can be said of any field so singling out any one in particular is incidental since they all have it. So yes, in a lot of ways jargon is not inherently a positive when translating the work's thoughts or arguments to a wider audience.

However the other side of that is jargon is important because it is information dense, particularly as a reader is intimately familiar with the concept. So when accuracy of an argument matters, jargon often matters and in attempting to split the difference the accuracy and jargon elements remain because they are important. Since you're mostly writing to a certain audience in University, you can lean into that even more and exercise your stuff at the high level but the best in that environment also emphasize writing and a sensitivity to this very problem. Some take no heed and others focus on it exclusively (look up "Public [Insert Field]"). With that said the quandry presents itself at every level because relative to my position in social science research (graduate level), there's some things I consider way too convoluted for its own good. If you can tell the research is good even if it escapes you, the tendency I think is to first put it on yourself first to step it up and then if multiple attempts fail, then it's at least somewhat on the author to take that into consideration.

Any obstruction that occurs due to the level of writing is largely consequential of the path to how it was done rather than any conspiracy to exclude. Believe me a lot of good researchers out there are weary of this and the many that aren't can get away with it because they largely only want to talk to their own audience of researchers, which is totally fine. It's a bit of a shame but at the same time the stuff gets around and eventually it works its way out.

With all that said I don't consider that a cause to dismiss the good work that is done out there because there's a surface level similarity between the two. I suppose that's the difference and I'll argue it's as much on the audience to be sensitive to the idea that there is such a good thing as good research and it may look similar to lacking research if you don't necessarily know it well enough. In other words it's not reading resentment into someone using certain terminology you might not be familiar with because I don't think that's a great attitude to take.

I think Ludonarrative dissonance is an interesting term because it originated in games criticism. all other forms of art like Film, Painting, Sculpture, and Music have their own vocabulary, and i think that its natural for games to start to build up a similar cache of terms over time.

I guess what im saying it that if games are to evolve, the way we think and talk about them should evolve as well.

Knowing your audience is definitely important, but I'd like to think that the Giant Bomb readership does not need to be talked down to. This is a relatively niche enthusiast site. Gamespot is the site that aims at a bigger, less informed audience. They definitely write with the average, less engaged consumer in mind more than GB does.

Dictionary. It's useful. You learn things. Less brain rot (no, really).

Also, for all of you common word people, there's this: Thing Explainer: Complicated Stuff in Simple Words... though you'll have to wait till November to get it.

Remember when Ryan always used to use some random vocabulary world? The one I remember the most was malfeasance.

So... What does Foucaldian mean? When I google it, I find "of or pertaining to the philosophy of Michel Foucault". Do I need to buy a book about Michel Foucault now?

@kewlsnake: wikipedia would be a good starting point. If you found it interesting you could get a book on him. Or better yet, get a book he wrote.

I tend to use bigger words in normal conversation because those are the words that come to mind. It's not about trying to put forward a certain image for the people around me (though at times I do hear from people that it makes me sound pretentious). First reaction is to be irritated if I'm honest because when people get on me about it it inevitably sounds juvenile to me and changes the focus of the conversation onto me and my language rather than whatever we were talking about. After that first reaction I try to see where that person is coming from but it's hard for me to comprehend. When I was a kid, when I heard a word that I didn't know, I would either look up the word in a dictionary or deduce its meaning by how it was used in the sentence. I just assume everyone else does that too.

So what is the Foucaldian analysis of using a word like Foucaldian?

Sometimes it's the best term for the job of explaining something accurately while minimizing the possibility of being misread.

Still there is an inherent value to be able to communicate with the public with minimal jargon.

e.g. when explaining Science one reason Stephen Hawking has had had the impact he has, is his ability to distill complex Theoretical Physics into everyday vernacular that the general populace easily understands.

I've added a note at the end of the blog to make myself clearer - I think I confused the issue by mentioning "big words" in the title, when it was more clear/unclear writing I was talking about.

To use a non-jargon example of my problem - I'm pretty sure I know what the words "descriptive", "prescriptive", and "strateigic" mean, and I have at least a hazy idea of what the word "ontological" means. But I can hardly get any sense from the words "consensus is most valuable when it's understood descriptively, not prescriptively, and strategically, not ontologically." From the context of the tweet, I'm guessing it meant something like "Consensus should be something that just happens to happen, rather than something people deliberatley set out to achieve". But that's just a guess; I'm sure there are other ways that sentence could be read - and if that was what Austin meant, why didn't he just say that? My main objection is to writing that's (deliberately?) difficult to understand, rather than just writing that uses big words.

sesquipedalian.

I think using philosophical terms is useful because... they're philosophical. Sure you can get more clarity at first glance if you have it laid out and simple, but the deeper meaning of what the writer means to say is easier to communicate with more meaningful terms. Not only does it add weight to the argument, but it adds layers of depth beyond whatever the literal meaning is.

Also for your point "“But consensus is most valuable when it's understood descriptively, not prescriptively, and strategically, not ontologically” (talking about how it's a good thing for games reviewers to not all repeat the same opinions)" I think your translation of his sentence doesn't carry the meaning of what Austin meant to say. I think you explain it a bit better later in your OP when you compare consequentialist utilitarianism to Kantian deontology.

Also to Austin's point -- I agree and disagree with him. You need to understand consensus descriptively and strategically, for sure, as you gain some insight into the causality of the change being spoken of. However, I think it would be a more complete analysis if it also did tackle the being of the change in question. We can only assert we have a metaphysical understanding of the being of a thing, but surely to have a more informed opinion we should be also theorising about the nature of the thing in question, and its being, as well as the action we observe.

For 20th century philosophers Heidegger's the one that I'm looking into now, but feel completely unable to argue over dasein as of yet :D

@belegorm: I may very well have misunderstood Austin's point, because I could hardly make head nor tail of it! Was I any closer in the comment I posted above yours? The idea that "Consensus should be something that just happens to happen, rather than something people deliberatley set out to achieve"? This is my central problem - I don't find writing like that clear! What does a "descriptive" or a "prescriptive" understanding of consensus mean? (If these are technical philosophical notions that would be assumed knowledge to anyone who'd studied whatever branch of philosophy they're from, then my apologies - I assumed they weren't, and I was just to treat the words "descriptive" and "prescriptive" with their usual meanings).

I think your talk of tackling the being of the change is showing up the problem here - ontology (as far as I understand it) is the study of categories of being, and of what it means for a thing to exist. But it's not at all clear (to me) what "ontologically" is meant to mean in this context - you've interpereted it (I think?) as understanding the "nature" of the consensus, and how it is brought into being. Presumably that wasn't what Austin meant - why would he advocate not trying to understand the nature of a consensus? I'm assuming he had something else in mind, but I have no idea what it is. This is just the kind of problem I was talking about!

Sometimes I like looking up new words and possibly adding to my vocabulary.

I think if my job involved writing I may be temped to get a little creative.

To this day anytime anyone says or writes "ostensibly" I want to stab them in the eye with a fork just a little bit.

How else am I gonna justify my overpriced liberal arts degree if I don't use useless academic jargon?

Learning new words is pretty cool

@immortal_guy: Ontology is partially a study of the categories of being/existence, but also a study of beings/existent things. Traditionally known as metaphysics, or something similar to it, but that tends to mean something different now.

I think it's good that Austin's using these damn big words (at the end of the day, they start FAR more discussion, than simple everyday speak; if he hadn't used those words we wouldn't have had this discussion), but it would be definitely easier for all involved if he either defined his terms, or pointed us to whoever defined the terms as he's using them.

I think when he says that it is more helpful to use description over prescription, I think he means that it is more useful to observe what is there, rather than evaluate it based on our own pre-existing ideas of it. And I believe when he says to use strategy over ontology, I believe he means that he thinks it better to see how the different parts operate together in the world, rather than trying to view them as some kind of existent whole. At least as I see it he's interpreting it in Humean empiricistic terms, that is to say he is sceptical of deeper meanings besides what we can observe there, and that any meanings come from our perception of the thing, rather than the thing in itself on the one hand, or from our own heads on the other. He is evaluating it from the proximate, immediate causes, whereas I would be interested in evaluating it from the ultimate causes.

Sorry, I was a philosophy major, and rarely get a chance to use my trade :P

Jargon shouldn't be used unless absolutely necessary.

I work in a clinic I have said the phrase 'lay down on your back on the table' thousands of times and some people still lay on their stomachs. This situation will not improve if I start using saying things like 'lay supine on the table.' You can ask a person if they have ever have had an implant placed in their back and they will say no, but if you ask them if they have had metal put in their back they will say yes.

It is better practice to simplify; even when you know people will understand you.

I'm not saying it always has to be to the lowest common denominator. Face it sounds ridiculous when people start throwing around term's like ludonarrative dissonance like everyone should know what that means right away. Instead of being impressed by the thought and research that the writer has put into their article I'm left thinking that this person really wants people to think they are an intellectual.

The dude's writing a dissertation lol, I can see why that style would creep in to his other writing.

Academic writing, of course, is the absolute worst. To read AND to write.

I really don't like obscurantism in any respect. It is very possible to use thirty-dollar words in your writing, but only if the rest of your writing infallibly communicates the idea you are expressing. Christopher Hitchens littered his speech with a lot of archaic English terms, but he spoke directly enough that you could understand the meaning of words you've never seen before through pure context. For instance, even if you've never seen the word obscurantism before, the context of everything else I'm saying indirectly informs you of its meaning. Hopefully.

If you want to see some fucked-up fucking shit, you should try reading Hegel. In any language. He'll twist you in a knot and then tell you that the knot is a relation within yourself, but not the relation itself but the relation relating to itself.

I think Ludonarrative dissonance is an interesting term because it originated in games criticism. all other forms of art like Film, Painting, Sculpture, and Music have their own vocabulary, and i think that its natural for games to start to build up a similar cache of terms over time.

I guess what im saying it that if games are to evolve, the way we think and talk about them should evolve as well.

Games do have their own vocabulary, but it has nothing to do with frou-frou ornamental language. Video game vocabulary is things like 'gameplay', 'control', 'cutscene', 'non-linearity', and more dedicated things like 'okizeme', 'survival horror', 'quick time event', or 'role playing game'. These refer to specific things and have specific meanings within games.

The hoi polloi will always ultimately decide what words have what meanings, not our cultured superiors. The only terms invented and exclusively traded among the powerful that end up surviving the roll of the years are those terms that refer to hierarchy and organization of people.

edit: This is an opportunity for me to link to the Sokal affair and I will not fail to use it.

Here's an excerpt from Polygon's review of Smash Bros. For 3DS. This reads like an overachieving 13 year old wrote it to sound smart. It's all gone too far. Video game writing has gone up it's own ass so hard it's kinda hilarious. I feel like Austin actually has the smarts to back it up though so good on him for applying his shit to the dung pile that is video game writing. It makes me feel a little bit better about it.

Heya!

So, two things:

First, I apologize if some of my tweets aren't always written with the clarity that my pieces are here. I'm in a strange place on Twitter right now. About a third of my followers are people who steadily grew to read my stuff and watch my streams over the past four years or so. Those folks come from a wide range of places, but there are lots of academics, critics, and other jargon-friendly people. I'm still in the habit of talking to them with tweets like that. (Also, it's a good case of where knowing the jargon helps. Laying out Descriptive, Prescriptive, Strategic, and Ontological would take way way way more tweets!)

Second, so here's what I mean when I say those words in the tweet "consensus is most valuable when it's understood descriptively, not prescriptively, and strategically, not ontologically":

Consensus is most valuable when it's used descriptively, not prescriptively: When we describe a real instance as being one of consensus, that's useful! It's a quick way of saying 'Well, at the very least, most of us are on board with this. Maybe we're wrong, but the real agreement we have counts for something." I'm contrasting this to statements that prescribe consensus as a singularly desirable outcome, like "Well, since we have consensus, we must be right" or worse "Good decisions only come out of consensus." Another example; Descriptive claim: "Upgrading the Quen sign in the Witcher 3 was useful for me, because the shield it gave me let me fuck up in combat without taking a lot of damage." Prescriptive claim: "People who are good at The Wticher upgrade the Quen sign" or "To be good at The Witcher, you need to upgrade Quen."

Consensus is most valuable when used ... strategically, not ontologically: In day to day life, we use a lot of categories and adjectives that aren't quite "right," but are good enough to work with. That's strategic (or, sometimes, 'analytic') use. So, when we think about consensus strategically, it means that we recognize that consensus is rarely full consensus. It means we pay attention to the fact that there are almost always dissenting voices, even if we go ahead with the group's overall desire. In fact, it means that we understand that the "group" we're talking about is probably also fluid, and that we'll re-evaluate what we mean when we talk about said group in the future. It's strategic because, like strategy, the specifics are unclear but the big picture is solid enough to work on (and it's "analytical" because it's a sort of linguistic tool we use to perform an empirical study with, and empirical studies can never reveal true reality, they can only present evidence that we can then use to try to infer something about reality.) Strategic/analytical claims are contrasted with ontological claims, which are (as pointed out in an above post) claims about the True Nature of Things. In the case of consensus, that would be imagining (again) that the consensus perspective on an event is True, and further, that consensus Truly Exists. The reality is usually a lot more complicated than that.

An example that worked well for me when trying to wrap my head around strategic/or analytic categorization was thinking about the civil rights movement in America in the 1960s (Or the LGTBQ+ rights movement today, or the Women's Suffrage movement, or the American Revolution, etc...). In the 1960s, a lot of civil rights leaders spoke about blackness in America or about the "Black Experience." Now: There was no unified black experience, no one set of features that constituted "blackness." As many social researchers would come to argue over the next 50 years, the boundaries of a racialized group are flexible and porous, and the features of a racialized group are many. Which is to say that in the 1960s, if you picked out the names of two different black people from a hat, you might get really different lives: One person could be rural, one urban; One a man, another a woman; One could have served in WW2, another might be living in an artist's commune (and for a third, both of those might be true!). And yet... "blackness" still felt like it referenced a set of experiences and perspectives that many, many, many black people shared. And so we can make a strategic claim: African Americans in the Jim Crow era were oppressed, dismissed, ignored, and abused. And because we're making a strategic claim about this group, and not an ontological claim about the nature of reality, the claim can be true even if there are exceptions to it. (And ideally, once the "strategic" use isn't as urgent, we can come back to those exceptions and interrogate them!)

There is another term that I use a lot (especially on Twitter, but I've used it here too), and that is also in contrast with "ontological." That term is "historical" (Oh, and sometimes "material," too!) I use "historical" for a lot of the same reasons I use "strategic" or "descriptive" above, but also because it helps clarify exactly what sort of claim I'm making. For instance, last year, a cousin and I got into a fight over this claim: "Women do household work." He wanted to make an ontological claim. For him, women just... did that. That was part of what made a woman a woman: They naturally, universally were somehow compelled to do chores. On the other hand, i wanted to make a historical version of that claim: "For a long time, household chores were considered "women's work," and women did the bulk of this labor." That claim is a lot stronger, because it isn't trying to refer to some ontological truth about some (again, for my cousin, ontologically defined) group of people. Instead, it's referencing specific, material actions and understanding them as something that can change in a different time or circumstance. For this reason, you might also see me (or other writers) contrast "historical" claims from "ahistorical" claims. Historical claim: "The geometry used in Picasso's Guernica dizzied viewers in a way that suggested the confusion of the Spanish Civil War." Ahistorical claim: "Guernica is a transcendent work of high art and beauty."

And for the record, I don't think we should never make prescriptive or ontological or ahistorical claims: They're just much, much harder to prove or argue for. Plus, it often seems like shifting the convo into this "higher tier" of argument ends up distracting from the reason we start debating or investigating something to begin with! If I set out to study the safety of manufacturing plants in China, and then someone drags me into an ontological conversation about what "safety" really means anyway, well... That's not going to help that study get done! At the same time, I'm really glad that there are people out there studying what "safety' 'really means,' but that doesn't mean I want them jumping into every convo where someone says "safety" so they can be like "WELL ACTUALLY..."

I hope that clarifies things a bit!

(Oh, and for the record, I stand by Foucauldian, since I was literally referencing the way a (gay) philosopher named Foucault wrote and spoke about the institution of marriage and its relation to queerness.)

-Austin

I'm sure Austin could, if pressed, clearly and articulately explain those tweets and what he was attempting to get across. Without reading the context around the one about game reviews, it comes across as a misguided attempt to get around a twitter character limit more than anything else.

edit: and while I was writing this post this he goes ahead and does that! Nice post Austin.

I somewhat agree that journalism intended to inform should use language that is clear and accessible. I wouldn't say that Austin's tweets should be analyzed in the same way, though; he does come from an academic background and a bit of argot is to be expected in those cases. (And of course staff tweets are a wildly different beast than what we do for the site in general.)

If anything, when I know someone has an expansive vocabulary or is otherwise erudite, it often seems patronizing when they write simply; it can come across as being talked down to. Although I suppose that an overuse of difficult-to-follow language can also come across as patronizing. That's a hard line to draw sometimes; I found the translations of Umberto Eco's works (especially Foucault's Pendulum, oddly enough) to largely be impenetrable because of the word choice, but I think that attenuating the vocabulary of something like Infinite Jest would make the work much less powerful.

Anyway; I like big words and when I come across them I do my best to add them to my own vocabulary, or at least understand them in the context in which they were used. Hemingway was a useful corrective to the flowery works that came before him, and of course all writers should speak to their intended audience as best they can. But in the end I guess Nabokov said it best: he was accused by a reviewer of having an "addiction to rare and unfamiliar words." His reply was: "It does not occur to him that I may have rare and unfamiliar things to convey; that is his loss."

(And I know I'm using a lot of literary rather than journalistic references here, but hey: English major. Who wants to do a book club on Finnegans Wake?)

Yeah, I'm also on board with this, especially for those instances where a writer has the privilege of a reader's full attention and engagement.

I actually nearly quoted a fairly obscure philosopher named Dirk Leach (and I don't say that to demonstrate How Well Read I am; I only read Leach because I once randomly worked with a professor who had a fixation on Leach's work), who briefly touches on the jargon of critical theory in an essay he wrote on nihilism, car manufacturing, and automation. Leach writes:

"Futility," absurdity," "nihilism,"--these words robbed a person of words, made it impossible to think. but they were the right words. They were dangerous and strange, but proper."

Call it good rhetoric if you want, but it rings true to me, especially in the case he's talking about.

@austin_walker:Thanks for the insight Austin! Keep tweeting and reviewing this way so we can see what you think about video games and also upgrade our vocabulary!

@kidavenger: I cringe when I hear that word at my university. I've only met two other students that know the correct definition and usage.

So let me get this straight: People are complaining because Austin is using big words when he writes his news articles. Very suspect behavior of some of the complainers. I'm just waiting for the Austin is uppity and arrogant complains next. Hopefully, my suspicions are wrong.

He was actually talking about Austin's Twitter feed. Fairly substantial difference.

An enjoyable song, but sadly not the vocabulary builder that I was hoping it to be.

Anyhow, I'm only bothered when writers use needlessly obscure synonyms. If there is a concept or a thought that can be better conveyed with a somewhat more uncommon word, go for it. I'd rather read someone write about "platitudes" rather than "overused and now cliche encouraging statements." If someone feels the need to use "masticate" when they could just say "chew," I can see where that could come off as pretentious, especially on a regular basis.

But if you don't know what a word means these days, the answer is just a few clicks away. There should be no shame in ignorance, and for everyone who knows the meaning of a word now, that once wasn't the case.

Give me all the big words. All of them.

They're very important, especially in an impersonal context like the internet. When I can't see you - your facial expressions, your body language - and when I can't hear the tone and inflection of your voice, it becomes more difficult to interpret your meaning, or perhaps more importantly, your intention. Not only that, but specific language is a large part of what makes people interesting. Have you ever spent time with a person who describes everything in extremes? "I just had the best dinner ever." "Work today was the absolute worst." When every statement is so exaggerated, the words lose their meaning. If you're having an adequate day, and someone says "How's it going?", a response of "good" will get you on your way. But if you say "adequate," you have a modest chance of starting an actual conversation. Rather than obfuscating, specific language brings clarity - it just sometimes requires a little more effort and good faith on the part of the reader.

Academic language can be daunting, or even alienating, I suppose (I admit I'm probably biased, as I have a modicum of familiarity with it myself), but it's also useful. If we're talking about Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, well, we should probably get right down to it, and not muck about defining all our terms over and over again - it's just so time consuming and painfully dull. In an age where you're a Google search away from being caught up, there really isn't that much burden on the reader to understand, and specific language is what makes writers... what they are. Part of what I enjoy about Austin's writing is his academic background, and honestly, I think he does a pretty good job of making it readable most of the time. I'd much rather him (and anyone, really) write the way he's inclined to write, rather than attempt to dumb it down for the cheap seats. I want to be challenged, not patronized.

So...never say yes or no. Got it.

I want my journalism, especially from Giantbomb, to be clear and accessible. That doesn't mean I don't want it to be thought provoking and insightful, just the language used not to alienate some of its readers.

If you ever feel that something on the site isn't accessible to you, I'd bring it up with the editor directly. Again, the original post is referring to tweets, not site content.

I agree on principle that in general it should be easy to read and interpret articles on the site. Adapting your writing to your audience is an important skill after all. For me personally though, I still get giddy when I learn a new word, especially weirdly specific stuff like the example in your opening post. I really don't mind looking up a word in a second tab while reading an article if it feels like the appropriate word to use in that situation. That just means I expanded my vocabulary at basically no loss. And I think Austin has been very good about this. Where it gets bad is when it feels like an author throws out words for no reason other than just to throw them out. I definitely tended to get that feeling sometimes from Patrick where I had to look up a foreign word that had perfectly fitting and simpler synonyms which made it feel mostly pointless.

EDIT: @duluoz Holy shit that is the best thing I've seen all week. Calvin and Hobbes is always so freaking spot on.

I like it. Obviously if you're trying to reach a particular audience you'll adjust accordingly, but I tend to appreciate it when someone writes the way they think.

But yeah, an especially obtuse piece of writing can be like a fun puzzle. Wittle away the confusing elements until there's a comprehensible idea left behind, and then analyze that core thought. Making sense of things is fun.

From what I've gathered- Austin refrained from the use of the more "academic" words in his articles here on Giant Bomb. He can go as crazy-nuts, balls-out, e-sports as he likes in his tweets. I kinda like that. As much as I don't like academia, I love talking about abstract ideas and social constructs. More of that, please!

This thread is amazing - god I love the Giantbomb community. I don't really have much to add but I have to share this old sketch from A Bit of Fry & Laurie about language (1990).

@rorie: hey Rorie, thanks. I was just throwing my opinion on writing in general out there. I hate reading something and not understanding it. (because of the vocabulary used) Now, you could say it's not the authors fault it's my own for not being educated enough, and that's a fair point. Austin seems like a very intelligent man, and I guess where I'm going with this is I don't want Giantbomb articles, wrote by him, to begin using the kind of language that makes me stop wanting to read Giantbomb articles.

I understand that might seem like a selfish and narrow minded view, and that others feel differently and that's fine.

I feel that ever since the popularization of the internet and the constant flow of information we have become somewhat know-it-all's. For better and worse.

We like that gratification and acceptance of our opinion, and we often become a bit addicted to it. When everyone has a voice online it's not hard to fall in love with your own. You start digging into stuff, but it's very easy to start over-analyzing and start tripping a bit over your own thoughts and words. Not throwing anybody under the bus here, because I am probably guiltier of this than most. Like previously said the most important thing is to get your point across. That's why I think it's always a good idea to take a step back and look at what you have written to see if it comes off as bloated. You don't want to water down what you have to say, but you don't want it to be hard to digest either.

I mostly understand ontology through the lens of archaeology, so this was super insightful - big ups to Austin for making this site an even cooler place to talk about video games.

If I spot a word that's unfamiliar to me I just look up what it means. That's how most people react.

@rorie: But in the end I guess Nabokov said it best: he was accused by a reviewer of having an "addiction to rare and unfamiliar words." His reply was: "It does not occur to him that I may have rare and unfamiliar things to convey; that is his loss."

Perfectly put.

Austin if you can teach us something with each post, I'll be happy.