OK two things have been bugging me for a while and are way too common:
1) People saying "infamous" when they mean "famous" or even just "good". For example, "the infamous BoltBeam combo" or "Latios's infamous Draco Meteor" or "Raichu's infamous pre-evolution."
Infamous means despicable. There's nothing despicable about having good type coverage. There's nothing despicable about a powerful move. There's definitely nothing despicable about Pikachu. Stop using "infamous" to describe good things. If a strategy is really annoying/evil/"cheap", like Moody Smeargle, or SubParafusion Froslass in Hail, or Wrap in RBY, then maybe you can describe it as infamous, but other than that you shouldn't be using the word.
2) People saying "abuse" when they mean "capitalize on" or just "use". For example, "Cloyster can abuse 125 Base Power Icicle Spear" or "Team support is vital in order to fully abuse specially defensive Heatran" or "Toxicroak is best paired with Politoed to abuse his Dry Skin ability."
To abuse something is to misuse it for a bad purpose. For example, intentionally triggering Acid Rain would be abuse. Using a powerful Pokemon/ability/move in a normal way is never abuse. Pokemon with Thunderbolt and Ice Beam are not "abusing" BoltBeam coverage. Salamence does not "abuse" his high Attack stat. Toxicroak is not "abusing" his Dry Skin ability in rain; he's using it exactly how he should be. This error is
extremely common in our analyses right now, but it is an error, plain and simple, and people need to stop making it.
If my fellow GPers could keep an eye out for these things and correct them when you see them, maybe we can kick these bad habits before they get too deeply ingrained.
EDIT: some extra discussion about "abuse" in #grammar
Quote:
[20:44:49] <@Eraddd> For toxicroak, I can see Toxicroak "abusing" rain, if it's set up by the opponent, and not by yourself
[20:44:55] <@Eraddd> Although arguments can be made for both sides in that context
[20:45:05] <@Eraddd> But yeah, in general, I agree
[20:45:34] <@NixHex> i posted about "abuse" vs "spam" a while back in that thread
[20:45:50] <@NixHex> i basically saw that abuse means taking advantage of the conditions around you
[20:45:54] <@NixHex> i.e. rain
[20:46:04] <@NixHex> and spam is use what you have over and over again
[20:46:12] <@NixHex> at that time i saw them used in the same context all the time
[20:46:31] <@Honko> i agree you can abuse an opponent's rain
[20:46:31] <@NixHex> and yeah, fuck infamous lol
[20:46:40] <@Honko> but if you set it up, you arent abusing it
[20:46:43] <@NixHex> infamous boltbeam
[20:46:46] <@Eraddd> Of course Honko
[20:46:49] <@Eraddd> Although
[20:46:53] <@Eraddd> Speaking from my metagame
[20:46:59] <@Eraddd> Toxicroak is used a lot as a rain counter
[20:47:04] <@Honko> thats true
[20:47:07] <@Eraddd> So
[20:47:12] <@Eraddd> In that case, abuse would be fine
[20:47:14] <@Eraddd> But yeah
[20:47:16] <@Honko> yeah
[20:47:18] <@Eraddd> The usage of the word
[20:47:20] <@Eraddd> Should really be stressed
[20:47:23] <@Eraddd> When we GP
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