Games Aren't Numbers

I’m compelled to break my sixty nine day long silence on this blog, so I present a previously unpublished post I wrote a long time ago but abandoned. I must have thought it was too trivial or something. Whatever. This is a blog about videogames (video games?) so the subject of spelling is probably a more important subject than most things I write about anyway.

You may have noticed that on this blog I tend to use the word “videogames” a lot, and I rarely, if ever, say “video games.” What’s the difference? That single whitespace character is a powerful one. It determines what is one word and what is two, three, four, or more. In my writings “videogames” is, as you can see, one word. While I’m not religiously committed to this, writing it this way has its purpose as well as every other character I commit.

Phonetic spelling is a long since lost cause in English, but nonetheless I’m more comfortable writing videogames as one word because that’s the way I say it. I don’t say video games, I say videogames when I speak out loud. It is a single stressed syllable. I don’t write every single term the way I actually pronounce it, but since “videogames” is considered by the public in both a single and double word form then I tend to side with the one that best represents my own voice.

Video games is two words, an adjective and a noun. Videogames is one word, a noun. The former indicates that the term was derived from two other mediums (not that that’s untrue). The latter indicates that videogames are a more genuinely new form, a small step past the combination of two separate words. The single word creates an identity that the two words do not. It is in a way my own signature I share with half of the blogosphere. It creates a faux individuality within myself, and an identity I can share with a larger whole. When I paraphrase quotes by people who use the two word version I will rewrite them to conform to my own writing. It provides me a subtle possession over what I write.

There are lots of people who talk about videogames as one word without even thinking about it. There are also people who consciously decide to spell it as either one or two words. Simply by making the choice on this matter establishes my identity. I become a person who cares enough about my subject matter to think the nuances of its expression all the way through. I can relate to people who chose to also write it as one word as well as those who write it as two words.

The discussion over which method is right or wrong could gnaw on itself forever, but I don’t think that’s important. I don’t oppose an alternate spelling; everyone is free to choose his or her own. I believe that sort of freedom is befitting of the nature of videogames. Videogames can be whatever the way to be, and in them you can do whatever you want.