If you lean forward on one knee, put both your hands out to mime pushing out a fireball of energy and yell, “Hadouken!” practically anybody who plays videogames will understand exactly what you’re talking about.

The down, down-right, right + punch combination used in all the Street Fighter games from II on is a staple of fighting games, the way the jump button goes with Mario games and drab dungeons go with anything Id Software produces. The move is elegance itself, especially with a joystick. The first time you pull it off, getting the timing of pushing the punch button correct, is a moment of transcendence: it is when a Game Boy becomes a Game Man. (Or Game Woman, depending on your genitalia.) When used in its deadliest form, the “Hadouken!” fireball move can be described by the cool-sounding phrase, “Down-right fierce.”

The actual word “Hadouken!” is what Ken and Ryu exclaim when they expel the fireball and do that forward gangsta lean. It is a made-up word for a made-up martial arts move that we all now instantly recognize. Bravo, Capcom, for propelling it slowly, but surely, across the screen and into the lexicon.