So, I’ve started a master’s degree in game design (yippee! 🎉). I’ve had some worries over whether or not this’ll be worth it and whether or not I’m just doing this, as my friend so eloquently put it, “as a cope over not finding a job”¹, but I talked about it to my mother and she told me I’d regret not doing it more than I’d regret doing it which seemed like fairly sturdy logic to me. School started this thursday and it’s been going well so far.

We have a class on the academic study of games; ludology (like, a class about how to do research and read from journals), and in this class the teacher brought up a misconception that I’ve discussed before:

Y’know, it’s funny how in hebrew “Play” and “Game” are said the same when they’re such different concepts, hebrew is fairly unique in that way.

Before a vein popped in my forehead I proceeded to push up my metaphorical glasses, unmute myself, and butt in with

uhm, actually, the two terms share roots and pronunciation across most languages, and english is actually the exception here.

The teacher was understandably taken aback that I popped in so passionately about something incredibly minor, but class continued as normal.

After class I was discussing with my teacher the mock-paper I’d be writing for his class and the topics that interested me, and he recommended I check out the book “Chris Crawford on Game Design”. I’ve started reading it and am only at the start, and so far it’s very interesting, but there was one chapter near the start that made me want to shove my head in a blender.

I shall now present to you the relevant text excerpt, with emphasis added by me:

The English word “fun” has no congate in any other language. Every other language has words for happiness, enjoyment, pleasure, and so forth, but it seems that no other language has a word that expresses the special kind of playful happiness that is encompassed in the word “fun.”

This sentence was written, edited, and published. And they kept it in. It only seems to be this case if you did not ask any polygot about this topic or even consulted a dictionary.

English-speaking monolinguals. I beg of you, if you’re gonna talk about other languages, first consult someone who speaks more than one of them.