Game offers plenty of word fun

By Alan Linda | The Daily Journal

Published Tuesday, December 2, 2008

The game of Balderdash which my family plays during holiday gatherings continues to provide me with endless insights and reassurances that, except for me, everyone in this family is extremely difficult to beat at this game, probably because they’re natural born baloney pitchers.

Balderdash, for those of you unfamiliar with it, gives the players a person’s name, a word, an acronym (like USA), a movie title, and so forth, and asks them to write out what they think it means, or is about, or whatever. Players gain points for not only guessing the right one, but for getting others to choose their entry.

Here we go with this year’s game: First on the list, a name—Ermal C. Fraze. The players have to say why he is notable. The entries are: He created the pull tab opener on cans; The first paleontologist to discover fossilized dinosaur bones in the United States; Invented the picket fence; In the Indiana State Fair record books for winning the hog calling contest four consecutive years, 73 to 77; Inventor of the paper clip while white house chef during the Lincoln administration; Holder of the longest ride on a roller coaster: 77 hours on the Coney Island Zipper; A known flavorist accredited with grilled beef smells; The first rider to complete the last leg of the Omaha to San Francisco Pony Express route; The electrician who installed “Old Sparky,” the first electric chair; Inventor of the ant farm; A Kentucky lawyer who, in 1871, printed the New Testament in miniature.

Next, the question was: What is an octothorpe? The answers were: A person who always keeps his night stand eight inches from his bed; An eight-sided instrument once used to peer inside the rectum; The use of parentheses and brackets to denote the order of mathematical operations; A collector of rare USA eight-cent stamps; A device used to harvest eyeballs from cadavers; Any animal with an eight-chambered heart; A nineteenth-century medical instrument used to correct crossed eyes; The pound sign on a keyboard; A style of Viking boat propelled by eight rowers; An eight-fingered person.

Next, the word was “myomancy,” what does it mean?: The art of applying magical force to an object; The process of withdrawing protein from shellfish for supplemental use; The study of magic that employs potion-making with animal parts; A medical condition that causes the scapula to be deformed; Cheese mold; A neurotic condition manifested by avoidance of any number having a 6 in it; Fortune telling by observing the motions of mice; Inflammation of the hip joint; A phobia of all things cold; The science of bringing the dead back to life.

Finish the following saying: It is illegal in Louisville, Kentucky, to fish…; Without a license issued by the mayor’s wife; With your feet; Bare hands and feet; With a blind prostitute; With A pastor on Sundays; With a gun; With car batteries or any other device used to introduce electricity into the water; With A bow and arrow; Dynamite; On a river bank with car headlights; with your hands; With tobacco as bait.

Here’s an abbreviation. What does it mean?—“NALI.” The Nebraska Affiliation of Leprous Individuals; New Age Literature Inc.; National Association for Living in Igloos; North American Lincoln Imitators; Notorious Arsonist’s Lifestyle Institution; New Age Life Institute; North American Lapdancer’s Institute; North Atlantic Lobster Institute; North American Lederhosen Institute; North American Limnological Institute; National Alliance of Lesbian Imitators.

Next: In Trout Creek, Utah, it used to be illegal for a pharmacist to…: Here are the players’ answers: Prescribe any product containing alcohol; Dispense cough syrup; Sell bait; Treat infections with fish oil; Fill any birth control prescriptions; Sell gunpowder to treat a headache; Sell condoms to Mormons; Sell birth controls to Mormons; Sell drugs not approved by the Mormon church; Fill prescriptions for any men having more than one wife; To write poetry; To fill prescriptions for fish liver oil.

That’s all the room we have. Do you have your answers? Did you bet someone you could beat them? Did you write down your answers, or are you just going to know which one you would have chosen, should they have been presented to you. Incidentally, I got only one of these correct.

Ermal C. Fraze invented the ant farm. An octothorpe is the pound sign on the keyboard (#). Myomancy is fortune telling by observing the motions of mice. It is illegal to fish in Louisville with a bow and arrow. “NALI” means North Atlantic Lobster Institute. Finally, in Trout Creek, Utah, it used to be illegal for a pharmacist to sell gunpowder to treat a headache.

Which this game gives me.

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Alan Linda writes from his New York Mills home.