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There have been various debates over the naming of some of the items in the game.
Pac-Man - Ghosts vs. monsters
The longest-running of these debates are of the villains. The four villains of the game have been called both "monsters" and "ghosts." Among the general population, "ghosts" seems to have become more popular. On the original gameplay instructions located next to the screen, however, the successive "200, 400, 800, 1600" scoring is referred to as "Monster point value." In Pac-Mania, the artwork next to the screen also calls them "monsters," and "The Sand Box" level introduction screen warns, "Beware of bouncing monsters." On the cabinet artwork for the earlier American games, the villains were also drawn as furry monsters.
The term "ghosts" originates from the failed Atari 2600 port. Technical limitations caused the villans to flicker, and the game's manual dubbed them "ghosts" so as to cover up the flaw. Although the game was ultimately unsuccessful due to these flaws, the term stuck, and soon spread to all of the bubble gum cards, stickers, and other merchandise released afterwards.
On the Japanese cabinet art and flyers, the villains appeared somewhat like sheeted ghosts. These became the basis for most drawings on the various merchandise. Consequently, cabinet artwork for later arcade games depicted the villans as more ghost-like.
The TV cartoon version compromised between the two conflicting names by calling them "ghost-monsters." Despite the name, however, the villains' characteristic were more ghost-like than monster-like. Their outfits, for instance, were now linen "ghost suits" kept stored in a closet. The villains also appeared to be spirits with eyes under the suits. However, the game intermissions show that they have fleshy bodies.
Pac-Man - Power pellets
On the instruction cards, the power items were called "energizers", but on the Atari 2600 port they were called "power pills", and on the cartoon they were called "power pellets" ("pellet" is more appropriate, since "pill" might suggest a drug reference). The 240 basic ten-point items on the game are simply called "dots" on the card. Again, the Atari 2600 version changed the dots to "video wafers" (because of their rectangular shape, no doubt). "Pac away" was used as the verb for the act of "eating" them. But there were no such pellets in the cartoon, but rather all were power pellets. (The act of one character eating another was called "chomping" in the cartoon).
Pac-Man - Fruits
The fruits were not officially classified in the original instruction cards and were not represented in the cartoon. Players have generally adopted the name of "fruits" to the bonus items that appear in the middle of the board. Pac-Mania officially calls them fruits; when a fruit appears, a notification says, "Fruit href = "http://www.experiencefestival.com/weird_al_yankovic">"Weird Al" Yankovic, 1980, 1980s, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1991, 1994, 1996, 2000, 2005, 256th, 50th Anniversary Collection, Adam "Pacman" Jones,
 Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Nomenclature conflicts", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page |
