"Re-creation", actually

[Ander11]

Hey guys,

PN is fantastic—thanks very much for all your great work on it.

While looking through the tables collection, I was confused why some of them were labeled "Recreation":

"Aren't all pinballs a kind of recreation?" I thought. That is, an activity people do for fun?

It gradually dawned on me that you meant certain tables were re-creations of physical tables (as opposed to originals, created in editors).

As you can see from these entries in Merriam-Webster (you didn't think I'd expect you just to take my word for it, did you?—LOL), those would actually be "re-creations", with a hyphen:

I'm no word historian, but I'm guessing that's why the hyphen was never removed from that meaning—because it'd mean something entirely different.

(And before you say it: Yes, I agree that virtual re-creations are "refreshing" to fans, but that's not quite what it means here.)

I don't know if you want to take the trouble to fix this—but if you did, I'm sure it'd be less confusing to those who hadn't already figured out what you meant.

For what it's worth, you could probably do this easily enough by loading your table pages' code into a code editor and doing a find/replace (including the tags around the term, which would limit the change to those instances). Just saying, okay? Cheers!

 

[xenonph]

Hey guys,

PN is fantastic—thanks very much for all your great work on it.

While looking through the tables collection, I was confused why some of them were labeled "Recreation":

"Aren't all pinballs a kind of recreation?" I thought. That is, an activity people do for fun?

It gradually dawned on me that you meant certain tables were re-creations of physical tables (as opposed to originals, created in editors).

As you can see from these entries in Merriam-Webster (you didn't think I'd expect you just to take my word for it, did you?—LOL), those would actually be "re-creations", with a hyphen:

I'm no word historian, but I'm guessing that's why the hyphen was never removed from that meaning—because it'd mean something entirely different.

(And before you say it: Yes, I agree that virtual re-creations are "refreshing" to fans, but that's not quite what it means here.)

I don't know if you want to take the trouble to fix this—but if you did, I'm sure it'd be less confusing to those who hadn't already figured out what you meant.

For what it's worth, you could probably do this easily enough by loading your table pages' code into a code editor and doing a find/replace (including the tags around the term, which would limit the change to those instances). Just saying, okay? Cheers!

From Collins dictionary

Recreation

1. variable noun
Recreation consists of things that you do in your spare time to relax.

Example
Saturday afternoon is for recreation and outings.


2. countable noun
A recreation of something is the process of making it exist or seem to exist again in a different time or place.

Example
They are planning to build a faithful recreation of the original frontier town.


So it looks like this can be looked at as a countable noun.

Example
The table author built a faithful recreation of the original table.

 

[GeorgeH]

I was confused with it also when I started virtual pinball. I think both versions are technically correct but it would be a huge undertaking to change every occurrence of it. Plus other pinball sites don't use it hyphenated.

Re-create vs. recreate

The hyphen is useful for avoiding confusion, but it is usually omitted.

grammarist.com

 

[Popotte]

For me, it's obvious. Recreation is when a strange guy (like me) recreate ( Cambridge dictionnary ) an existing (so, real) pinball.
Some other guys create (so, don't recreate) original(s) pinball(s) (never created before).

 

[TerryRed]

Emulated = tables that use VPinMAME and roms, based on real tables
Recreation = EM or real tables that don't use a rom and rely on new coding, sound, music, dmd, etc
Original = tables that are not based on any real table, and need to be completely made from scratch in all aspects
Re-Skin = changing the art (and maybe adding new sounds / music) to an existing table (can be any of the above)
Mod = changing many parts (can be code / modes / gameplay / art / music / sounds) of an existing table (can be any of the above)

The level of work involved from one table to the next can vary. Some can be a small portion of work, or a simple mod..... others can be months / years of work.

 

[Popotte]

...

The level of work involved from one table to the next can vary. Some can be a small portion of work, or a simple mod..... others can be months / years of work.

I don't think people know the time to recreate (original, re-skin, mod) a table. For me, for just a basic EM, it's a minimum of one week (full time) just for the pics (as code is simple). For the moment, I recreate Happy Clown and I spent (not finished) two weeks (two plastics to do and one thing on the PF and finish the backglass and have deeper tests for the code).
And I don't speak about "complex" tables...

 

[TerryRed]

I think most people would have a heart attack if they saw the level of complexity and work involved with Silent Hill (in every area) :) So much has changed, and there is so much new content, it's crazy.

While creating an original table is much more work... it's also liberating because you can do anything you want with it.

Silent Hill is unique in many things it does, and its literally multiple original tables in one table, so there is no base of reference for most of the things I'm doing. The result... is learning lots of new things... over and over and over again :)

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

@Ander11,
I'm a bit nitpicky with words, and have always thought that "re-creation" is far clearer than "recreation" in common, clear parlance. Yeah, I understand that in some dictionaries it might be defined as correct, but in technical fields I get the sense that "re-creation" is highly preferred. So the pin-sim hobby being fairly technical on the 'backend' side of things, I can see your point.

Then again, there's all kinds of words, especially trending words, that seem kind of silly, unapt or confusing, but the prospect of being an old man ranting at clouds is not very appealing to me.

Take the word "based," for example. There's a whole generation that seems to associate this with... something excellent... but my response is more like "based? well, based on what, exactly?"

Looking just now, I see:

What does "based" mean?

"Based" is a slang term that originally meant to be addicted to crack cocaine (or acting like you were), but was reclaimed by rapper Lil B for being yourself and not caring what others think of you—to carry yourself with swagger.

Which brings me round to the point that language has fluidity, and that definitions, spellings, rules and pronunciation can and do shift over time. So maybe in other communities they use the word "re-creation," but in the pin-sim community, "recreation" it is.

 

[StevOz]

Strangely enough this word play discussion was the topic of a morning show here.

Then the argument turned to...

Does it really matter?

The purpose of language is to communicate to another and so long as the others involved understand the meaning behind the message, does it really matter?