WE DIDN'T THROW THE **** GAME

Zero Shingetsu··1 votes·737 views
throw a game

It's pedantic. But this bugs the hell out of me. If the player base wants League to be a sport, it should at least use sports terms correctly. So often I see someone having a bad performance referred to as "throwing". This just came out of my last game:

: You see, semantics. : gg : Throwing the game means intentionally losing. : Bot just did poorly. : There's a difference. : throwing the game doesn't mean intentionally losing : I suck, but I don't lose on purpose. : It does actually. : it means losing an advantage that you had : Look it up. It's a sports term.

I've been a football fan since I was a kid, and I was sure I had this term right, so I looked it up myself to double check. Just in case it changed on me in the past few years. Sure enough:

"Fig. to lose a game on purpose."

If you're going to say your team lose their advantage, say it right. "We lost our advantage." "We screwed up." "We blew it." "They didn't win, we lost." "We let it slip away." "We gave up." "We got cocky." There are several ways to say it right, so USE YOUR WORDS.

... Not that it's a big deal, nor do I expect anyone to actually listen to this. It's mostly just here as an interesting factoid, to be honest.

15 Comments

Deep Terror Nami1 votes

Yes that's a great definition you have there, but society decides what a word/phrase means, and they can change or have multiple meanings because of that. There are tons of gaming idioms that have their own meaning in the context of a game.

Zero Shingetsu1 votes

Perhaps. In that case, I'm going to start calling it "being a low-wage grunt with no future" when someone carries our team. It doesn't mean what it literally says, it means you carried trash, like a garbage man. It's a good thing! :D

(No offense to garbage carriers. Without them we'd all be wallowing in disease. I'm just trying to make a point here.)

Kãtãrinã1 votes

In league of legends throwing a game means losing a lead you once had. Not intentionally losing. Saying wow we threw the game, is using the words right. that is like saying "that is hot" is being sued wrong if i call a chick hot you know i mean attractive correct? "WELL NO IT DOESN'T USE YOUR WORDS SHE ISN'T BURNING UP OR ANYTHING JUST SAY SHES ATTRACTIVE" <----that is how you sound

Zero Shingetsu1 votes

Technically I don't use the term "hot" in that context, so I guess it's just me being pedantic about language. Maybe it's a subconscious thing... ... Wow, this actually turned pretty introspective. Huh!

Anyway, I get the point, it's just... I'll put it this way. Slang in our era usually originates from a meme of some kind. Like "xpeke!!!!!!" (which annoys me for a totally different reason). For a while, "XPEKE!!!!" was literally a byword for backdooring successfully. Does that mean he was literally Xpeke? Does it mean Xpeke is, himself, literally the act of backdooring? No and no. And I accept that slang, because it originated from an event within League of Legends that turned memetic.

In this case, League players are adapting slang that already exists from another medium and misusing it. That might be why it bugs me. Then again, maybe I'm overthinking it and it's just shorthand for throwing a game away, which is totally appropriate wording.

StealthWarden1 votes

thats it man you nailed it! they had it..and they threw it out. and all the other things about you just being annoyed they arent talking like you :P spot on (^_^)

StealthWarden1 votes

its kind of like "cool" it had no roots in whether something was popular or interesting and then magically was applied in that way. league has its own language. like "smurf" no one here has a little blue person account and those accounts are never plagued by a giant sorcerer that wants to turn them into a magical liquid to power his wand...its just a secondary account, but no one calls it that. I mean for crying out loud, ADC stands for attack damage carry...but somehow it has to be a marksman...and doesnt have to carry physical damage either..soooo, wtf ? just do what all us old guys do..ask wtf they mean, let them explain it, and add it to your "i talk league now" databanks (^_^)

Zero Shingetsu1 votes

LOL, the ADC thing is actually a totally different topic I could rant about, actually! Unfortunately, I don't think I'll ever talk League. But I do see your angle. :) It's a tolerable thing, the "throw" remark, it's just... one of those things I felt like soap boxing about. It's certainly preferable to the "UGH KJJKEWHTJKWEWEFRWE THIS NOOB JUNGLE GO KILL YOURSELF IRL" remarks you sometimes see thrown about, anyway!

StealthWarden1 votes

youre allowed to have your pet peeves :P i just think you would be less stressed out if you approached from a different perspective. Assume league speak is just like texting, and when you dont know or arent sure what "op" means just ask and and move on.

that one is particular can be confusing "original poster" "over powered" context clues are your best friend, lol (and again another one "laughing out loud" "League of legends")

Zero Shingetsu1 votes

That's not a bad point... I think I might try that. :) I mean I KNOW what a lot of terms mean, especially regarding League acronyms, I just refuse to accept some of them (like "throw"). But it may be less annoying if I look at it from that perspective. Thanks for the tip. :D

StealthWarden1 votes

no worries :)

Blazing Tenshi1 votes

Many sports have different terminology, League =/= football.

Zero Shingetsu1 votes

League =/= sport, for that matter.

Kãtãrinã1 votes

League is an E-sport so technically it is a "sport"

Zero Shingetsu1 votes

No, you're right, I looked it up. Under one of the definitions of "sport", League does, in fact = sport. My bad. :)

Matthias91191 votes

It's not without precedent. It's common to talk about "throwing away a lead" in sports when a player or coach does something really dumb. Presumably that's where the League phrasing comes from.

e.g. see #39 under ( http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/throw%20away?s=t )

Verb phrases throw away,

to dispose of; discard. to employ wastefully; squander. to fail to use; miss (a chance, opportunity, etc.):

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