Watch your language

A funny and instructive story:

http://cardplayerlifestyle.com/watch-your-language-at-the-poker-table/

Another example of the "gaming" euphemism myth

Last week the Washington Post carried a story about the growth of poker's popularity among college-age males. Following the predictable route, it features both examples of extraordinary success (Eric Froehlich), and warnings of dire consequences. Blah blah blah, nothing new.

The meat of the article aside, this is the sentence that caught my attention:

The past decade has seen an evolution of gambling to “gaming,” a triumph of euphemism amid a wave of legislation to legalize and destigmatize wagering.

So much for careful background research.

I wrote about this common misperception in some detail almost four years ago, here and here. Short version: Gaming came into the English language about 250 years before gambling did. It is simply not true that the former is a euphemistic replacement for the latter.

I have submitted a suggestion for a correction to the Post's web site, and emailed the author of the article, asking whether he has any evidence to support the euphemism claim. If I get a response from either source, I'll let you know.