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David K. Israel
IQ-tips timewarp trip: Ice Breakers
by David K. Israel - November 14, 2006 - 10:31 AM

vanderbilt1.jpgIf you missed yesterday’s installment, we’re on an IQ-tips timewarp trip this week, dipping into Amy Vanderbilt’s classic book from the 1950s, The Complete Book of Etiquette, looking at her chapter on Home Entertaining.

Nowadays, if you’re stuck for what to say at a party, it’s always easy to pull something out of our savvy new book, Cocktail Party Cheat Sheets. But the poor folk stuck back in Amy Vanderbilt’s day weren’t so lucky. Check it out:

Occasionally, even the most astute hostess will find gathered under her roof—perhaps at a birthday party where relatives and friends are of varying ages—a group of people it is difficult to entertain. In this circumstance games are often very helpful as ice breakers. “The Game” is very popular even among intellectuals. “Ghosts” is also entertaining. I remember playing it when our electric power went off for four days and we wearied of trying to read by candle, lamp, and flashlight. Even a spelling bee can be fun in a large crowd of young and old. A book of games is probably an excellent addition to everyone’s home library.

[ed. note: I guess I’m no son of an intellectual, because my parents have no idea what “The Game” refers to. Any readers care to enlighten us? And while you’re at it, how about “Ghosts”???]

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Comments (11)

  1. Wiki says, Ghost (game)-

    Ghost is a word game in which players take turns adding letters to a growing word fragment, and trying not to be the one to complete an English word. The one that does, loses that round of the game. Usually some minimum is set on the length of a word that counts, such as 3 or 4 letters. Otherwise, for example, the game could not be started with “A” or “I”.

    posted by Colleen C on 11-14-2006 at 10:49 am

  2. Thanks Colleen C! Sounds like a fun game. I’m still dying to know what “The Game” is. ‘Cause in my family, “The Game” means football: Eagles, Sunday, be there for “the game.”

    Maybe you guys want to play a round of Ghost in the comments? I’ll start it off with an “S”…

    posted by David on 11-14-2006 at 11:50 am

  3. I’ll add an “H” …

    posted by Dan H. on 11-14-2006 at 11:56 am

  4. “Ghost” sounds retarded. I have a fun vocab game my Japanese teacher makes us play, and it can work just as well with English words ~

    This game is inspired by the fact that the Jap language is syllabic. Just use the last syllable of your neighbor’s word to begin your own word & keep going til you get bored. Example: I say “tako(octopus)” and my neighbor says “kodomo(child),” etc.

    posted by Amanda on 11-14-2006 at 12:44 pm

  5. I’ll play Dan!

    Hu

    posted by Melanie T on 11-14-2006 at 1:01 pm

  6. when i was we played a different kind of “Ghost”. in it you had one person be the ghost and it was their job to catch the other people in the room. the ghost also had to keep their eyes closed (i know having your eyes closed sounds stupid being in the dark and all but thats how we did it!).

    posted by Deidra c on 11-14-2006 at 1:22 pm

  7. This is driving me crazy. I *know* that I’ve read somewhere what “The Game” was, but it in a offhand remark like, “XYZ was so popular that it was simply referred to as ‘The Game’”, but I can’t remember what XYZ was – Charades? Botticelli?

    Google is no help because you can’t Google for punctuation and searching for “The Game” finds every site mentioning a game on the entire web.

    posted by CMPalmer on 11-14-2006 at 1:50 pm

  8. In small town Texas many years (try 60)ago “The Game” was charades. I’m don’t know if this was true elsewhere but my folks were certainly Amy types.

    posted by Jim Miller on 11-14-2006 at 1:58 pm

  9. The Game is a completely cerebral parlor game where the goal is to not acknowledge it’s existence. There are multiple versions of it… knowledge of The Game is all you need to play. The rules are, if you think about The Game, you are out and must let the group know you are out. Everyone still in then gets a grace period to forget about it again before resuming. The Game can conceivably go on forever…

    posted by Jason! on 11-14-2006 at 2:17 pm

  10. Yes, “The Game” is Charades. It won’t let me link my reference site… The other game mentioned (not thinking about The Game) was invented pretty recently, as far as I know.

    posted by TAE on 12-2-2006 at 1:56 am

  11. “The Game” refers to prostitution, of course.

    posted by Miko on 2-8-2007 at 8:53 pm

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