People who know me know that I love words and language. I’m not one of those people who gets all uptight about the misuse of the word “ironic” or who loves archaisms, but I do mourn the transition of meaning for “begging the question” and I read Fowler’s English Usage for fun.

When Variety uses the word “maven” to describe their list of influential people in the gaming business, a little piece of me dies. A maven is someone who is an expert on something, who has a deep, wide-ranging knowledge and appreciation of a topic and who seeks to pass that knowledge on to a wider public. The word gained currency from William Safire’s language column in the New York Times in which he would explain the origins, meanings and distinctions between words; he dubbed himself a language maven and, no matter what you think of his politics, the man knows words.

So in what universe is anti-violent game crusader Leland Yee a gaming maven? You could even quibble about whether many of the designers on that list are mavens, since their expertise is in performance not passing knowledge onto others; I mean you wouldn’t call Bruce Springsteen a rock and roll maven would you? Is Michael Crichton a literary maven? And how is a film director a “vidgame maven”?

Variety seems to equate maven-ness with influence and that’s not necessarily wrong; a maven with no influence or potential to effect change isn’t much of a maven. But knowledge comes first, and nowhere do the articles convincingly communicate maven stature.

And don’t get me started on “vidgame”.