You must not wow

My husband, who has learned the consequences of saying "aren't computer games dangerous?" came home last week with a new saying: "Du må ikkje wowe. Du må sove i natt." This means: "Don't wow, sleep tonight."

For those of us who are not all that deeply into teen-language, "wowe" in Norwegian means to play World of Warcraft. It appears that WoW is so addictive that the teen-agers are loosing sleep over it. The discussion at the meeting he attended was not about whther the kids would become criminals if they learned how to bash orcs over the head of use a morningstar to slay goblins, the problems were quite real and present: kids are playing the game so much that they don't sleep at night, they are shivering wrecks acting aggressively if they are denied computer access when they come home, and their grades are dropping severely, as they do no homework.

I have to admit, in our household the constant repetitions of "du må ikkje wowe" had the wrong effect. Apart from alternative warning poems ("Du skal ikkje wowe bort sumarnotta, ho er for ljos til det" as my favourite (original text here)) offered from all members of the family, I immediately had to buy the game! Which, of course, leads to amusing conversations between concerned father and delighted son (also known as research assistant): "you must not wow, you must sleep!" "It's not a game, is a sacrifice, the research needs me!"