Word Games: WORDPLAGUE Echo

Unfortunately, the distribution of this echo has dwindled, mainly due to people dropping out of Fidonet, to the point where it's only on my own BBS. If you'd like to get it on your friendly neighborhood Fidonet BBS, have your sysop netmail me.

Some of the games we play there include:

Art Her

This got its name because the first entry was on the subject of King Arthur. That "translates" to "Art Her" because the concept is to mangle what you're writing (which is otherwise normal conversation back and forth) so that you use words completely different from what is really meant, but if you read it out loud, it comes out at least recognizable. The canonical example is the mangling of Hamlet's Soliloquy, that I spotted in someone's .signature ages ago. It starts with "Tube Eeyore nacho bean, dada-ist equestrian".

The longer a word you can use, the better. The best I can recall is when Bruce Feist said that a <something> was a <something else>, and that it would be an "aeronautical" (i.e., error not to call) it one.

Fell Kin

This was inspired by the Filken variant of Pilsen, combined with Art Her. Basically, you mangle (a la Art Her) either song lyrics appended Filken-style, or an entire song (in which case it's not really a game, but just something posted for amusement value). A "whole song" example would be:

Ewe rag Randolph lag,
Ewe Ra Haifa lion fill hag,
ANFO raver inn piece mayor waive.
Yurt a hem blam HOV,
Thel hand isle of,
Duh hoe muff duff re Ann dib rave.
Avery hart beet strew wonder rad, why, tan blew,
Ann dares Nerf Arab host orb rag!
Butt shoe dole duck Wayne tans beef orgiat,
Key pure ion dug Randolph lag!

Llable

Playing Llable frustrates people, because Llable's regulations require using only polysyllabic utterances, monosyllables being absolutely prohibited. Otherwise, discussion continues normally, similar unto everyday postings. Contrast versus Syl.

Pilsen (the one that started it all!)

This is played by using the last (or possibly only) word or syllable of the previous entry, as the beginning of yours, and tack the rest of yours onto the end. It was sparked by a discussion of beer, in which someone corrected someone else as to the nationality of the town of Plzn, whence comes the Pilsner style of beer. (Hence the name of the game.) The thread eventually read something like this:

Bohemian.
Rhapsody.
in Blue.
Velvet.
een Rabbit.
season!
's Greetings!

and so forth. The entries should be short, and can be pretty much anything we would all probably recognize, such as a famous phrase, person's name, place name, song lyrics, title, etc. Endings should not be repeated, and even more importantly, sources must not be repeated (for instance, don't use the same famous speech). The more of the previous entry you use, the better, but you must make it clear that you're jumping to a new source.

It has many variants, such as Neslip, in which instead of appending onto the previous entry, you prepend. This can result in what looks like an ordinary Pilsen string (except perhaps for stacked quote markers), so sometimes people jump into either one, and add at the wrong end.

Another variant was Filken, inspired by the concept of filk music. (No, that's not a typo; follow the link to find out.) In this one, all entries had to be song lyrics. For instance, it could resemble:

I'm looking through you
need is love
love me do!
you want to know
that he's just a fool
in', I know she isn't

Note that this one could qualify as an even more restricted sub-game, as these are all Beatles songs (I'm Looking Through You, All You Need is Love, Love Me Do, Do You Want to Know a Secret?, Fool on the Hill, and She's a Woman).

There were several other variants, but frankly, most of them resulted from people making very bad entries in one of the above, and weren't (IMHO) anywhere near as entertaining or challenging.

Syl

This one is not hard at all. You just talk, er, type back and forth, as you would do on most days and in most groups, but don't use words that have more than one, er, ummmm... sound. You know what I mean, don't you? If you think that is tough, try Llable for a big change of pace! The more you can write in this way, and still sound smart, the more we like it.

Triple Trouble

This is somewhat like the Jeopardy category "Common Bonds". However, in Jeopardy, the correct response is simply what the common bond is. (In the form of a question, of course!) Since these games are designed to have each response solicit another, the correct response in Triple Trouble is another set, with the first item being the bond common to the three items in the previous entry. Assorted "twists" are allowed, homonyms being among the most common. A Triple Trouble thread could resemble:

Oscar, side, kingdom.
Wild, Adam, world.
West, needle, walk.
Point, warden, dangerous.
Game, masked, cry.
Ball, cartridge, drinks.
Round....

Verse

The essence of playing this game,
Is easy to tell from its name.
  Each entry's a poem,
  Writ right so we know 'em.
(Free verse is an unworthy aim.)

An entry can be any form of poetry, just so long as it's recognizable as such. That is, it must have some discernable pattern of rhyme and meter, as opposed to free verse or blank verse, which IMHO is just prose chopped up into small lines. Haiku and other forms distinguished only by syllable count are fine, especially if done in the proper "spirit". Other than that, it's just ordinary conversation.

It has many variants, mainly by restricting the form of verse to one in particular. For instance, one thread was conducted in Shakespearian Sonnets.

There was another game, by a now-forgotten name, in which we tried to avoid using the letter E. Some attempts were made to avoid other letters.

Furthermore, many of these were combined. One amazingly long thread was conducted entirely in monosyllabic Shakespearian sonnets! (Can you imagine doing that, without using the letter e?) Some of them, especially Pilsen, tend to attract lots of responses, resulting in a sort of "combinatorial explosion", so be careful when starting such a thread. In fact, that's how the WORDPLAGUE Echo got started in the first place.