Author Archives: David Zheng

Guaf

Context: A. is a sophomore in university. He grew up in South Africa and is refering to nature reserve that his family owns. When he visits home, him and his family often go camping on this land with their extended family.

A: “‘Guaf’ is something that my extended family uses, and also super-extended family (3rd and 4th cousins). It is an alternative for the word muck or grime. There is open water lake that we go to in this open land that we own. There is this silt at the bottom that helps filter the water, and it makes the water murky. It feels a bit slimy if you touch it, but you can get by without touching it. ‘Guaf’ is the word that we use for this, and it kinda sounds the way it feels.”

Reflection: This is a good example of how words are often created when there is something missing in a language. This is one of the many ways languages can change over time. Over time, words will are created as slang, getting popular, and then become official parts of the language.

Baron Pit Dodge ball

Context: League of Legends is a popular video game in which players are placed into 2 teams of 5 and must fight each other. There is also a wide roster of characters for the players to pick from and use. Due to the free-flowing rule set of League, many community-made mini-games have been created. One such popular one is ‘Baron Pit Dodge ball’. In this game, all the players confine themselves to a small circular part of the arena called the ‘Baron Pit’ and create a line using place-able items. They must also pick characters that have primary abilities that have to be aimed. They then play dodge ball by only using a single aimed ability. There are many adaptations of this game, and every group of friends will have different in-house rules. S. is once such example as she plays this game with her friends quite often.

S: “In a league of legends, my friends and I would play dodge ball in the baron pit, we would put wards in the middle and make a line for the court. We then would only play skill shot champions, if you die, you are out.”

Reflection: ‘Baron Pit Dodge ball’ is an interesting case where the community of a video game has created their own mini-games within the confines of the greater video game without having to change or ‘mod’ the game in any way. It is particularly interesting when these mini-games emerge because that indicates that the rule set of the video game is loose enough to allow for such creativity on the player’s part.