Editor's note: Derek aims to be the Noah Webster of Bitmob, documenting -- and making light of -- the words we gamers take for granted. What other ridiculous terms should he include? -Brett

For the average person, listening to a conversation between two gaming enthusiasts must make them feel like a middle schooler on the first day of Spanish class. The amount of technical garble and inside baseball that takes place in these exchanges can sometimes be daunting even to someone who knows what they are talking about. And to be honest, a lot of it is really ridiculous sounding.

This is where Gaming Lexicon comes in -- to poke a little fun at just how ridiculous some of our favorite gaming terms are. I’m hoping to make this a weekly feature, but don’t hold me to that.

Let’s get to the first five terms.

AAA Game

If we’re having a discussion about ridiculous game industry terms, this seems like a great place to start. I’m not sure which is crazier: that some minimum-wage marketing intern thought this would be a good term for a big title release, or that the rest of the industry agreed with him. I see how the idea could have been born out of having a studio’s “A team” on the project, but why AAA? Were there ever AA games? I don’t know about you, but I’m counting the days until someone steps it up and brings us the first ever AAAA title. Here’s an insider tip: AAA is code for “this game cost a hell of a lot of money and we’re screwed if it doesn’t sell.”

Buff

I’m going to pump…you up. This is a term that I’ve always tried my best to not say out loud because it’s about as dumb as the wrestler of the same name. What’s worse, it can be used as a noun or a verb, so you have twice the chance to be absolutely incomprehensible to the average person. I’m not sure who had the thought to associate a geeky thing like casting a spell to power up a character with a term only used by muscle-bound meatheads to brag to girls…ohhhhh, now I get it.

Carebear

I didn’t even know about this term until about six months ago, to be honest. It is apparently a derogatory term used for people who only play games the easiest way possible. Now, if you’re going to reference a 1980s cartoon, why the hell do you pick Care Bears? Besides the fact that most players who use term probably weren’t born when the series originally came out, Grumpy Bear was pretty badass. If you are going to make an insult out of comparing a player to a sissy cartoon, wouldn’t it more topical to call them a Naruto?  

Grinding

Ah, grinding. Love it, hate it, or simply tolerate it, fans of the RPG genre are very familiar with this term. And while it may one of the most common words in our gamer vocabulary, try explaining how the game you love requires you to fight the same monsters over and over again to a non-gamer. Chances are they will look at you like you have three heads. But at least you will have earned +2 Conversation describing what the word means.

Griefing

While an informed person may have a fairly good chance at figuring out what some of the previous terms mean even if they don’t play games, this one is liable to make pretty much anyone stare at you blankly. Even after you explain to them that some people online love to be obnoxious and purposely try to ruin your gaming experience, you’re very likely to get that same blank stare in return. The fact that a term even exists for this activity sometimes makes me sad to be a gamer. I’ve actually refused to explain its meaning to someone before. Others have asked me on why it isn’t just called “being a dick” like in real life. Why indeed.

That does it for the first chapter of Gaming Lexicon. As I mentioned earlier, I’m thinking of making this a weekly series if you enjoyed reading it. I’ll tackle five new terms a week, and with all the crazy terms gamers throw around, I’ll be able to do these for quite a while. Tune back in next week!