Games
with Words
Games
with words are here restricted to games for more than one person rather than the
types of puzzle etc that are normally done by individuals
Letter
arrangement
One
type of game involves putting an arbitrary collection of letters together to
form a word, say Scrabble or Lexicon. Skill is a matter of finding the combination that makes a
word with the maximum possible score, i.e. getting the Q on a treble letter square etc. This usually relies on some
arbitrary set of words in an established dictionary rather than ordinary English
vocabulary. Books on Scrabble assure you that English includes such two letter
words as: aa, bo, ka, ky, od, qi, ri, x, and
ut. More unusual forms are Up Word,
where players put letters on top of other letters as well as before or after;
Sequence
games
A
remark by one player has to be
followed by a remark from the other player following some rule or another. One
version is word association where the next player has to produce a word related
in meaning to the first: sky, plane, pollution ... Another is alphabetic sequence – My
aunt’s cat is an angry cat; my aunt’s cat is a bashful cat…. Or the
sequence may depend on the last letter of the word, say countries, Canada,
Aden, New Zealand …
Structured
sequences
The
old game is Consequence where players
build up a story by writing words on pieces of paper which they pass round,
having folded it over to conceal their word; one of the many variants goes:
(man’s name) met (woman’s name) at (place); he said to her “___”; she
said to him “___”; and the consequence was _______
The most complex is Mornington
Crescent where players complete a journey round London based on complex
unstated sequencing rules, played with a number of local conventions such as the
Finsbury Rules.
Restricted
production
A
traditional game is speaking for as long as possible with no hesitation or
repetition, or not using some word. Alternatively the answer yes
is banned and a player is out who says yes.
More intellectual versions might involve banning all words that start with C,
have Latin roots, or are used in cookery.
Word
guessing games
The
object of these is for players to guess a word or phrase that has been chosen by
someone else
In
the Manner of the Word involves players acting out any suggested action in
the manner of an adverb chosen when the guesser is out of the room; happily
means any suggested action has to be done happily etc. More complex is Charades
where players act out phrases, film titles etc with mime until guessed.
Twenty
Questions alias Animal Vegetable or
Mineral requires people to guess a concealed word within 20 questions
Doubtless every
reader has seen these in their television incarnations. The first ever TV quiz
show was probably What’s my Line? in
which people mimed their job to a panel, incidentally the first ever pure
celebrities famous for nothing other than being on television. Just a Minute has been exploiting restricted production on the radio
for 35 years. Nowadays we obviously prefer to watch other people play games than
play them ourselves and prefer to buy them in expensive packages than use pen
and pencil.