Talk Like a Gamer

Here's a fun article by Greg Cotikyan on gamer lingo, originally published in the Summer 2002 issue of Verbatim: The Language Quarterly . Some of the terms refer to game actions that sound pretty gruesome and some of the language would make a sailor blush, but it is interesting to read about the different jargon used to describe various game terms. Here are a few examples of gamer-speak:

A buff is a spell or other game effect that temporarily increases a character's abilities; to debuff is to cast a spell on a character that adversely affects his or her abilities.

A mule is a secondary character used to provide more storage space for the stuff you want to hang on to; if your backpack is full, just fire up the mule character and give him/her/it the stuff to carry. A mule will water ski, meaning it will automatically follow the main character about, like a boat pulling a water skier.

A brick is a powerful fighter, usually devoid of magic or other powers. The implication is that bricks wall off more vulnerable members of a group from dangerous mobs by interposing themselves between the two.

Cotikyan lists all the games he's authored in his Ludography .