Bad Quail Games // G. Michael Truran

WotC D&D editioning does makes sense if you base the numbers on game lines rather than revisions.

1 - OD&D, B/X, BECMI, etc. The original non-advanced D&D.
2 - AD&D. A new game line concurrent with "basic" D&D.
3, 4, 5 - the WotC editions, as numbered. Each is basically a new game, non-compatible with prior editions. 3.5 and 4E Essentials don't count as new editions because they're both revisions/refinements of their contemporary game line; and in the case of Essentials, still fully compatible.

. . . but rather the pop culture bleed that leads some people to apply it to non-D&D media as a universal framework. People do the same shit with the 3 x 3 alignment axis, which also bugs me.

"Gandalf is an angel, not a wiz-" "No, you shut up! Wizard doesn't mean that in Middle Earth."

"If some people are just born magic in Tory Wizard Land, they're really sorcer-" "No, you shut up! Wizard doesn't mean that in TERFlandia."

The whole problem only exists because TSR/WotC needed a name to stick on a guy who does magic slightly different from the other magic guys. It doesn't have anything to do with historical uses of the word.

The real difference between Wizard and Sorcerer? "Wizard" comes from Old English and literally translates to "wiseass" and "Sorcerer" comes from Latin by way of Old French and probably originally meant "fortune teller."

The usage meaning "underground monster town" is a term of art specific to video games/TTRPGs. Similarly, dictionaries don't tend to have an entry for the game-specific meaning of "boss."

Unlike "boss," though, the amount of traditional use of "dungeon" sees nowadays is basically a rounding error compared to the meaning Gary Gygax used. I bet a lot of younger folks don't even know the original definition. (Not that they haven't heard it used, but that when they did they were probably envisioning the Mines of Moria or whatever.)

The best theory I've heard -- I'd love to hear others -- is that this usage originates with the board game Dungeon!, which depicts an underground jail which also happens to be an underground monster town. Dungeon! was published in 1975 -- a year after Dungeons and Dragons -- but Gary Gygax played a hand-made version of it in 1972, then called "The Dungeons of Pasha Cada," when he was considering publishing it.

I like to use the OED, because it does a good job of breaking down the nuances of use. Here we have:

• Dungeon as a place of imprisonment, of which the use in fantasy games is considered a subset.
• Dungeon as reference to Hell.
• Dungeon as a deep, dark place.

With the exception of games dungeons, these definitions are all roughly contemporary. And none are considered archaic.

My understanding is that OD&D makes reference to the dungeon as a kind of mythic underworld. So I think Gygax was probably just using dungeon in those not uncommon terms.