WRecKball; Lousy language used by paintballers

By Jamie Innes
January 6th, 2007


I remember the first time I ever looked through a paintball magazine, twas somewhere around 2001. I was staying at the Pines resort, in Wanaka... for some reason the local paper plus had a magazine called "Paintball", so I scooped it up, because I always wanted to know about paintball. Now bear in mind, I had no quasi-military interests back then. I didn't know an M4 from an M14, yet this magazine successfully alienated me as a newbie in one sitting.

As I read the magazine, several things stuck out as odd. Well, they seemed odd to me... but I guess they're not in the grand scene of things. Why were there only photos of guns that looked like something from Star Trek? Why did all the fields consist of either inflatable bouncy castles, or large sections of irrigation piping? And what in god's name was a paintball 'marker'?

I basically read that magazine cover to cover, and eventually surmised that 'marker' was some sort of bastardised name for a paintball 'gun'. A definition I hold to this day. I was also blatantly obvious that the game too, had also been bastardised. No longer did it appear to take place in the woods where players wore camouflage.... NO, the movies "Class of 1999 Part 2" and "Friday the 13th Part 6" had both either lied to me, or become obsolete. Paintball was some how no longer a war game.

Of course those are the impressions I got as a newbie, having read this abomination of a magazine. Luckily, I can say with integrity, that my opinion is largely unchanged. What I have noticed however, after having now spent 4 years playing ball, is how paintballers use some downright fucked up words for things. So without further delay, here are some of the words I think don't have a place in paintball...


'Nitro'

The applicable meaning being; Compressed air. High pressure air. Stored in a high pressure air tank, used to power the gun. Why oh why do people call it nitro? Joe Public will wonder if that means something along the lines of nitrous oxide. Mabey they say Nitro coz it sounds cool? Please, air consists of nitrogen, AND oxygen and carbon dioxide. There are other more suitable labels, such as Air, or HPA.


'Speedball'

As I read the magazine, this confused the hell out of me. SPEED-ball? what the hell was so speedy about speedball? WHY was it called speedball? The last time I played Speedball, was on the Sega Master System. Great game. It's a futuristic version of american football, where you use a stainless stell ball, electrify it, use it as a weapon, and hit targets with it to score points. I had many great hours of fun playing as the team "Brutal Deluxe" on Speedball, on the Sega.

As it relates to paintball, I don't exactly see why it needs to be called speedball. The balls don't go any faster! I know I know, small field, small time limit... players must move quicker etc. But why Speedball? Surely Speed-game, or Intense-ball, or Manmade-barricade-ball would actually be more suitable. This of course is futile... fighting the use of colloquial language, so chalk it down to my own person confusion.


'Sup' Air'

"Heeeeeeyyyyy, whasss sup????!!!" The word 'Sup' is a colloquial word for 'what's up'. It was this BEFORE it was abbreviated into a name for inflated paintball bunkers. This kind of double jeopardy is what makes English a hard as hell 2nd language to learn. Multiple meanings for the same word, or different meanings for words that sound similar. Paintball does NOT need to be on the english language butchering bandwagon. Furthermore, I peg this down as laziness... Why call it "Sup"? What's wrong with "Super Air". Super Air sounds significantly different, and because the word isn't abbreviated, there is no room for error. Furthermore, it's only 2 more letters! Why the hell did a mere 5 letter word get abbreviated down to 3 letters in the first place???


'Tagged' & 'Marker'

Tagged. The last time I got 'tagged', was when I was actually playing 'tag' with friends in primary school. Tagged;- It goes hand in hand with marker. Politically correct terminology for a minority sport which secretely must be shit scared of presenting anything more than a watered down version of itself to Joe Public. The aweful truth is though, Joe Public ALREADY knows about paintball, they know we use paintball guns, and we shoot eachother, and it's usually done in the woods. They already know about Paintball's dirty little secrets that you think you can hide from them. Yet some people insist on PC terminology. As if PC as a cancer, isn't already bad enough in western society... we're adopting it too, a group of gunslingers of all people. But you'll never see me use these terms.


'Recball'

The crown jewel of misappropriated language, and the namesake of this entire blog. Why the hell do people call paintball 'Recball'? (As in- all paintball that's not a tournament). There are other acceptable names. The name of this website is 'Bushball', that's my favourite. But there's also 'Woodsball' and even 'Scenarioball'. That about covers it.

But why recball? Well I'll tell ya, the word is derived from 'Recreational Paintball', which is a term obviously dreamed up by the tournament crowd because the meaning attached to it is, all paintball that's not a tournament. because tournament ballers never refer to their game as 'Recball'. Unfortunately...

The term has had fucked up usage since day 1. When you look up 'recreational' in the dictionary, it basically says 'an activity that stimulates'. It's THAT broad. Gee... could tournament paintball be an activity that stimulates? It sure could. Guess that means tournament paintball, like EVERY OTHER KIND OF PAINTBALL, is actually recreational. Thus why we should not EVER use the word 'Recball' unless you're using it as another word for 'paintball'



I wasn't always this fussed about the english language, but bear in mind... I take pride in the English language and it's origins. I'm a Gen-X'er, I grew up without cellphones and the internet. I grew up in a world where it was not acceptable to use text speak in your high school exams... unlike today. So I'm one of these people it bugs the hell out of, when people don't have enough respect for the english language to use the correct, or most appropriate terms.