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[Steve Block]

Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Steve Block wrote:
> 
>> Steve Block wrote:
>>  
>>
>>> The Cunctator wrote:
>>>    
>>>
>>>> On 1/4/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>>>>      
>>>>
>>>>> The Cunctator wrote:
>>>>>        
>>>>>
>>>>>> I would note that "Game Over" comes from American video game culture
>>>>>>          
>>>>>>
>>>>> It's much older than.  It appeared on pinball machines before video
>>>>> games ever existed.
>>>>>        
>>>>>
>>>> Hmmm... you're going to have to edit
>>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_over then...
>>>>      
>>>>
>>> Oh for crying out loud, what on earth does a referee's whistle mean at 
>>> the end of a footie match if not game over?  Christ, how many PE 
>>> teachers around the world have called out come on in boys, game over...
>>>    
>>>
>> I mean Thackery wrote in Vanity Fayre that "The Game, in her opinion, 
>> was over".  That's a century before pinball culture.  Did Americans 
>> invent sex too?
>>
> There are many examples like the one from Thackery.  "The game was over" 
> is somewhat different because of the "was".  I looked at Google Books 
> and kept getting a lot of different situations where a sentence ended 
> with "game", and the next one began with "Over".  We are looking for its 
> use as an interjection.  Perhaps in something like this hypothetical 
> sentence: "As he lay on his deathbed he realized it would soon be game 
> over."  The problem is not as easy as it seems.

Thackeray is probably the one to try, and probably why the OED cites him 
under it's section on these uses of the term game.  I keep turning up 
tantalising snippets from google of Thackeary passages, the most recent 
being "Here Madam Esmond caught sight of her friend's tall frame as it 
strode up and down before the windows; and, the evening being warm, or 
her game over, she gave..."  Now I haven't the context to ascribe any 
meaning to that snippet, since I don't have the whole work, but 
Thackeray is an author who did write of women and the games they play. 
Becky Sharpe springs to mind from the aforementioned Vanity Fair.  I 
think there's more in this than meets the eye, and I think it serves 
Wikipedia to work out how best to describe this.


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