Grammar Girl on Games

Gamer is a noun for a person who plays games. Until recently a gamer was someone who played and enjoyed role-plays
(in which you take on a fictional character and create a
target=”_blank”>role) or war games (in which you play military games).
A gamer is now the word for someone who plays a lot of computer games and is very good at them. They are able to think quickly,
make decisions and react to their environment, and some say that gamers may do very well when they learn or practice English,
because of the very fact that they are able to make logical and quick connections between ideas and the world around them.

In the context of this word, and its meaning, there are adjectives that you can use before it to make more phrases. Some are:

• console, game
• handheld game
• pc game
• video game

Interestingly enough, gamers have a special phrase for people who like games with simple rules and who don’t like to spend a lot
of time playing computer games. They call them ‘casual gamers.’ The phase for the opposite of a
casual,
gamer is a ‘hardcore gamer’ which means that they spend most of their free time playing video or computer games.

Of course there are many other games but we don’t always call the people who play them gamers. This is now mainly used for the
players of online, computer or video games.

Is it only teenage boys who play video and computer games? Research has shown that 40% of gamers are female and that the
number is rising. My favourite game is Scrabble but I don’t think I’m a gamer.

This post isn’t only about some gamer vocabulary. I’m not a normal gamer but maybe I’m an English gamer because I’m helping Languagelab experiment with
English learning activities
which have gamer ‘rules’. It’s really really interesting. In fact students who have tried it out found it
addictive,! Imagine that -addictive learning :-)))

Digg.com

StumbleUpon

facebook