[Ads-l] broken = overpowered

Amy West medievalist at W-STS.COM
Sun Sep 18 14:23:01 UTC 2022


On 9/18/22 00:00, ADS-L automatic digest system wrote:
> Date:    Sat, 17 Sep 2022 07:36:50 -0700
> From:    Barretts Mail<mail.barretts at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject: Re: broken = overpowered
>
> Great citation and explanation!
>
> “Bust” and “busted” have a lot of colloquial and slang meanings.
>
> I don’t see the meaning of “overpowered" for “busted" in Wiktionary or the Urban Dictionary, but both give the meaning of “broken” and the UD does have “incredibly good” on page 15 (https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=busted&page=15  <https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=busted&page=15>) by heeyaaa March 8, 2021.
>
> The UD also has “ugly,” “busty” [word play here?], “boring/lame,” and “of poor quality”. I stopped looking at page 20 out of more than 200. The UD has a number of references to the band Busted (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Busted_(band)  <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Busted_(band)>  ), generally saying they were a terrible band, which might have influenced the negative meaning.
>
> Benjamin Barrett (he/his/him)
> Formerly of Seattle, WA

Just talked to my gamer informant (son):

"broken" means something is "really good" and the use is because it 
"breaks the game's systems" because it's "overpowered."

---Amy West

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org


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