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[Tamil_Tiger]

I made this game up when I lived in the student co-ops to comment to friends about people that I thought were hooking up. It evolved from this into a source of great entertainment. Consider it akin to Balderdash or Taboo, or one of those parlor games. I think English is a truly versatile language that lends itself to being twisted around like this. I tried to do a few in Spanish, but it's more difficult I think, but then again, maybe a native speaker could pull it off.

Basically you take a name (a person, place, whatever) from a finite list of names and scramble it. Using all the letters you make some interesting phrase or snippet and then build a riddle around it, designed to elicit whatever snippet it was you found in the name. The other people try to guess it based on your riddle. The wrong answers are really better than the right one as you can see how creative and imaginative people get with trying to answer.

I'll give you a few examples and then leave you with a few to see if you can figure them out. I suggest this not as a classroom activity, but rather as an interesting diversion with other english speakers. I want to entice a few people to take up the riddle game. Anyway, here are a few examples:


These are all drawn from the names of US President last names of the 20th century. All letters must be used, and only those letters. Strange wording can be used as long as you indicate, however subtly it may be, that there is something ungrammatical or unusual about the answer.

Example 1. There is an old timer at the Sing Sing Prison who is well liked by his fellow inmates. Since he works in the laundry, they affectionately call him this.

Answer: Clinton - lint con ----> he's a prisoner therefore con and he works in a laundry so lint makes sense. The rest of it is perhaps a bit spurious and I throw it in there as a red herring to throw people off the scent a bit.

Example 2. "That Ted Turner is a real slavedriver", says the news anchor. The other news anchor replies, "That's what we call ___ _____ "

Answer: Clinton - CNN toil ------> This one's a little more complicated than the previous. Ted Turner owns CNN which is why he is referenced here. They are both news anchors so if you made the Ted Turner connection, then they are CNN employees. From a list of presidents of the 20th century, clinton is the only one you can get CNN out of. playing with the other letters you can understand the slavedriver part, toil.



I leave you with a few. Feel free to post up a few of your own if you have any. I'm switching to US States now.

1. A certain Tibetan Spiritual leader is considered to be the proverbial black sheep of Tibetan spiritual leaders. They call him this for fun ___ ____ (2 words).

2. There is a certain primary school teacher who loves coffee and often gives praise and criticism using the standard of coffee. For instance, when his students are particularly bright or well-behaved, he says, " you're so good today, just like a Starbucks Christmas blend. When he's pissed, he says, you're nothing but a bunch of no good ______. (1 word)


Good Luck

[donfan]

1. baa lama - Alabama

[merlin]

I was trying to cheat and ran across this site for those interested in anagrams:
http://www.anagramgenius.com/
free anagram software:
http://www.anagramgenius.com/agfree.php

[dmb]

[Tamil_Tiger]

baa lama ---> alabama is indeed the right answer. Nice work .

here's another.

Young Arthur (yeah, I mean King Arthur) is looking to free a sword but finds there are many swords. He asks a knight for directions and knight points and rather tersely replies, " ___ ____" (2 words)

This is also a state.