August 11, 2010

"Stop following your non-rules."

= the only rule in the word game we were playing, as we distracted ourselves while hiking 7 miles over rough terrain.

9 comments:

Triangle Man said...

It was not an attempt to speak without double negatives?

Scott said...

You were playing Calvinball?

Crimso said...

This is like watching "Inception"

AFG said...

@Triangle Man - From this linguistics blog that analyses Simpsons Quotes:

Confusability of multiple negations:

At ‘Brother Faith’s Revival’, Brother Faith is introducing his act with some high-energy patter:

Brother Faith: Now, correct me if I’m incorrect, but was I told that it’s untrue that people in Springfield have no faith? Was I not misinformed?

Audience: (murmurs of puzzlement)

Brother Faith: The answer I’m
looking for is ‘Yes’.

http://heideas.blogspot.com/2006/03/hippo-birdie-to-this-blog.html

Unknown said...

"hiking 7 miles over rough terrain"

That can be quite a long haul. Very wise to find a distraction.

traditionalguy said...

If love means never having to say that you are sorry, than marriage is an unsafe place. Rules make boundaries that make places safe.

Peter Hoh said...

There are two simple word games I know and enjoy. Best with two or more people, of course.

One is the Four Letter Word Game. One person gives both the first and the last letter of the word. The other players try to guess the word.

Deceptively simple. Great fun for a long car ride. Works best with several people. Plural versions of three letter words are not allowed.

Person who guesses correctly gets to issue the next challenge.

Want to play?

The clue is "B" and "G."

And the answer is not "blog."

----------------

The other game is a word association game for which I have no name. I think they played some version of it on M*A*S*H.

You start with something like "Abe Lincoln." An appropriate response would be "Lincoln Log."

Next might be "log cabin." "Cabin fever." And so on.

There could be a fevered discussion as to whether or not "Saturday Night Fever" was a legitimate response.

Ann Althouse said...

@Peter The game was like your second game, except there were no rules. You couldn't give a wrong answer. You just give a word (or phrase) in response to the previous word or phrase and keep going. It was quite amusing. Basically, word association.

Peter Hoh said...

Then you should enjoy this little video from Radiolab and NPR, spotted on Sullivan's blog yesterday.