I was playing Scattegories with some friends last night and ran into an interesting scenario. The game is about coming up with names of things/people/places/etc that begin with a particular letter. The goal is to get as many points as possible and you get a point if yours is a unique answer for the particular category. Apparently, one of the rules is that you cannot use the same response for more than one category. Initially this did not seem like a big deal. After all, what are the chances that a capital and a menu item or an insect name and a crime would be the same? But it turns out, it happens more often than one might think. I suspect this may be because you are so focused on the letter and the words you have already come up with that if one of them fits another category, you’ll make the connection relatively quickly. You have three minutes to find a dozen matches, that’s a lot of cognitive switching in a short span of time. I ended up with the same response to the following two categories: President and Product Name (which we interpreted as brand name). What was my answer? There are probably several matches depending on the letter, mine happened using the letter H. I got the product name first and then realized there had been a U.S. president by the same name. Knowing the outcome, it would make sense to figure out the match here the other way around, of course.;) Remember, no Web searches available during the game and you have about fifteen seconds to come up with a response. (Of course, from the point-of-view of the game this is a silly exercise since the goal is to avoid such overlaps, but we’re not playing that game.:)
My guess would be President Hoover, and the vacum cleaner by the same name.
Yeah, well, I figured it wouldn’t take that long…;-) Good job! At least this response is below the fold.:)
I direct your attention to an episode of Larry David’s HBO Comedy “Curb Your Enthusiasm” which features a game of Scattergories.
Shaquille O’Neill is laid up in [the] hospital, thanks to Larry David. He’s playing a game of Scattergories that includes his doctor as a competitor. Turns out the M.D. is cheating, and Larry uncovers the evidence.
Apropos of nothing other than I like “Curb Your Enthusiasm”
Keef
I was playing Scattegories with some friends last night…. The game is about coming up with names of things/people/places/etc that begin with a particular letter.
‘Scattegories’, eh? Sounds remarkably like what I know as Stadt, Land, Fluss.
As if you needed further proof of my nerdiness, I immediately assumed the answer was “Hayes” — as in, Rutherford B., and the Hayes Smartmodem, the 1200-baud version of which was among the dearest possessions of my teenage years.
Keef - How was the MD cheating and what was the evidence?
Mrs. Tilton - Aha! Now I remember what the game was called in Hungarian: Ország, város (I think), which translates into: Country, city. We didn’t have an actual board or printed up cards, we’d just take a sheet, write country, city, river, mountain, etc. on it and pick a letter. It was a very popular game at birthday parties. I guess the focus could be on geography because we actually had geography classes.;-)
Jordan - That’s funny. I did wonder if anyone would come up with a Hayes product.;)
eszter wrote:
“Keef - How was the MD cheating and what was the evidence?”
As I recall, it went like this. After time ran out for a round the players were reading from their sheets the words they had used in each category. The doctor read his words, threw his game sheet in the wastebasket, and left to work.
Made suspicious by the doctor’s sneaky demeanor, Larry David pulled the sheet out of the wastebasket and discovered that one or two of the blanks on the game sheet were not filled in — the doc had claimed words he had not written in the alloted time.
I’m not giving too much away, as this is a small scene near the end of the episode, and there’s a lot of other funny stuff going on in this little scene, too.
Keef
Bush baked beans. In the US, they throw brown sugar and a slab o’ pig fat in the can.
Keef - Thanks for the clarification. It’s true, there is potential for cheating at that stage of the game. You could claim to have written things you hadn’t written either to neutralize someone else’s response or to add something last minute to a field you left blank. We played a very friendly (and honest) game last night. We were more inclined to accept iffy responses than to reject them.. especially if they were imaginative. There is a lot of room for creativity with categories like “things in a suitcase”, “things you like to keep hidden” and “things you save up for”.
Hoover answer took me about half a second - no doubt because I used to have a thing for Art Deco, hence had a thing for the Hoover factory on the North Circular Road. I mention it because associations are sort of innaresting. That game must bump into associations all the time.
There was a game show on cable that I only saw once (I don’t even remember the name), but it had a really great category of questions this show: Vice President or Vacuum Cleaner. They would toss out a name and you had to say whether it was the name of a Vice President or a vacuum cleaner brand. Obviously inspired by Hoover, but that wasn’t one of the questions.
The Hoover building is fantastic.
This guy here has some photos.
Hmmm … Vice President or Vacuum Cleaner? Sounds like you were watching Win Ben Stein’s Money
Before I got to the point where you restricted it to the letter H I had come up with Ford. And of course cars remind you of Lincoln.
“Ford” is an obvious one.
“Johnson & Johnson” — it’s a brand name, and two presidents! ;)
“Carter” is a children’s clothing manufacturer.
If you’re not fussy about spelling, there’s “Busch”, a crappy-even-by-American-standards beer.
Just to underline Keef’s comment about Curb Your Enthusiasm. A month ago, like many in the UK without cable, I had never heard of this. But I was given the DVD and I would now have to rate it in the superleague of US comedies. It is in some respects rather like a cynical LA version of Voltaire’s Candide, by and starring Larry David, a, or the, writer of Seinfeld.
This allows me to introduce my Seinfeld theory, which I first tried out about five years ago to universal disdain. Could it be that the characters are - implicitly or otherwise - based on Disney favourites? Jerry is Mickey Mouse, Elaine Minnie, George Donald Duck and Kramer Goofy?
Eszter,
yes, that’s it exactly; Stadt, Land, Fluss is clearly the German for Ország, város. Nothing more than a piece of paper and a pencil and a frantic race down alphabetised mental lists.
But you’re not implying that this ‘Scattegories’ is something that uses a board and cards and that one buys in a box, I hope? Next you’ll be telling me that Coke has taken ordinary tap water, stuck it in a bottle with an exotic name on it and flogged it off to foolish yuppies at an obscene mark-up!
The Hoover factory is indeed fantastic, but it’s not on the North Circular - it’s on the Western Avenue, a bit east of Greenford. And it’s now a Tesco’s.
Since scattegories is really all about fighting, the underdetermination of the rules makes good sense. When friends and I play, we usually leave the rules as vague as possible at the outset in order to maximize yelling in the course of the game.
Mrs. Tilton - No, I’ll be telling you that Coke has taken ordinary water, stuck it in a bottle without anything additional, and is selling it for more than the stuff with the magic syrup.
Yeah, I’ve been amazed at the number of do-it-yourself paper-pencil games that show up on store shelves in this country.
Oh yes. Fictionary is a classic one — I forget what the stupid card-and-board version is called, but it completely misses the point (and the sheer fun of searching the dictionary for a good stumper).
An earlier version of the boxed game was called Facts in Five. I played a version you didn’t buy even before that.
And Lincoln Logs, of course.
Hammer DeRoburt and Hammer brand knives.
(It didn’t say last names. It didn’t say U.S. presidents. And no, I didn’t do any web searches.)
À Gauche
Jeremy Alder
Amaravati
Anggarrgoon
Audhumlan Conspiracy
H.E. Baber
Philip Blosser
Paul Broderick
Matt Brown
Diana Buccafurni
Brandon Butler
Keith Burgess-Jackson
Certain Doubts
David Chalmers
Noam Chomsky
The Conservative Philosopher
Desert Landscapes
Denis Dutton
David Efird
Karl Elliott
David Estlund
Experimental Philosophy
Fake Barn County
Kai von Fintel
Russell Arben Fox
Garden of Forking Paths
Roger Gathman
Michael Green
Scott Hagaman
Helen Habermann
David Hildebrand
John Holbo
Christopher Grau
Jonathan Ichikawa
Tom Irish
Michelle Jenkins
Adam Kotsko
Barry Lam
Language Hat
Language Log
Christian Lee
Brian Leiter
Stephen Lenhart
Clayton Littlejohn
Roderick T. Long
Joshua Macy
Mad Grad
Jonathan Martin
Matthew McGrattan
Marc Moffett
Geoffrey Nunberg
Orange Philosophy
Philosophy Carnival
Philosophy, et cetera
Philosophy of Art
Douglas Portmore
Philosophy from the 617 (moribund)
Jeremy Pierce
Punishment Theory
Geoff Pynn
Timothy Quigley (moribund?)
Conor Roddy
Sappho's Breathing
Anders Schoubye
Wolfgang Schwartz
Scribo
Michael Sevel
Tom Stoneham (moribund)
Adam Swenson
Peter Suber
Eddie Thomas
Joe Ulatowski
Bruce Umbaugh
What is the name ...
Matt Weiner
Will Wilkinson
Jessica Wilson
Young Hegelian
Richard Zach
Psychology
Donyell Coleman
Deborah Frisch
Milt Rosenberg
Tom Stafford
Law
Ann Althouse
Stephen Bainbridge
Jack Balkin
Douglass A. Berman
Francesca Bignami
BlunkettWatch
Jack Bogdanski
Paul L. Caron
Conglomerate
Jeff Cooper
Disability Law
Displacement of Concepts
Wayne Eastman
Eric Fink
Victor Fleischer (on hiatus)
Peter Friedman
Michael Froomkin
Bernard Hibbitts
Walter Hutchens
InstaPundit
Andis Kaulins
Lawmeme
Edward Lee
Karl-Friedrich Lenz
Larry Lessig
Mirror of Justice
Eric Muller
Nathan Oman
Opinio Juris
John Palfrey
Ken Parish
Punishment Theory
Larry Ribstein
The Right Coast
D. Gordon Smith
Lawrence Solum
Peter Tillers
Transatlantic Assembly
Lawrence Velvel
David Wagner
Kim Weatherall
Yale Constitution Society
Tun Yin
History
Blogenspiel
Timothy Burke
Rebunk
Naomi Chana
Chapati Mystery
Cliopatria
Juan Cole
Cranky Professor
Greg Daly
James Davila
Sherman Dorn
Michael Drout
Frog in a Well
Frogs and Ravens
Early Modern Notes
Evan Garcia
George Mason History bloggers
Ghost in the Machine
Rebecca Goetz
Invisible Adjunct (inactive)
Jason Kuznicki
Konrad Mitchell Lawson
Danny Loss
Liberty and Power
Danny Loss
Ether MacAllum Stewart
Pam Mack
Heather Mathews
James Meadway
Medieval Studies
H.D. Miller
Caleb McDaniel
Marc Mulholland
Received Ideas
Renaissance Weblog
Nathaniel Robinson
Jacob Remes (moribund?)
Christopher Sheil
Red Ted
Time Travelling Is Easy
Brian Ulrich
Shana Worthen
Computers/media/communication
Lauren Andreacchi (moribund)
Eric Behrens
Joseph Bosco
Danah Boyd
David Brake
Collin Brooke
Maximilian Dornseif (moribund)
Jeff Erickson
Ed Felten
Lance Fortnow
Louise Ferguson
Anne Galloway
Jason Gallo
Josh Greenberg
Alex Halavais
Sariel Har-Peled
Tracy Kennedy
Tim Lambert
Liz Lawley
Michael O'Foghlu
Jose Luis Orihuela (moribund)
Alex Pang
Sebastian Paquet
Fernando Pereira
Pink Bunny of Battle
Ranting Professors
Jay Rosen
Ken Rufo
Douglas Rushkoff
Vika Safrin
Rob Schaap (Blogorrhoea)
Frank Schaap
Robert A. Stewart
Suresh Venkatasubramanian
Ray Trygstad
Jill Walker
Phil Windley
Siva Vaidahyanathan
Anthropology
Kerim Friedman
Alex Golub
Martijn de Koning
Nicholas Packwood
Geography
Stentor Danielson
Benjamin Heumann
Scott Whitlock
Education
Edward Bilodeau
Jenny D.
Richard Kahn
Progressive Teachers
Kelvin Thompson (defunct?)
Mark Byron
Business administration
Michael Watkins (moribund)
Literature, language, culture
Mike Arnzen
Brandon Barr
Michael Berube
The Blogora
Colin Brayton
John Bruce
Miriam Burstein
Chris Cagle
Jean Chu
Hans Coppens
Tyler Curtain
Cultural Revolution
Terry Dean
Joseph Duemer
Flaschenpost
Kathleen Fitzpatrick
Jonathan Goodwin
Rachael Groner
Alison Hale
Household Opera
Dennis Jerz
Jason Jones
Miriam Jones
Matthew Kirschenbaum
Steven Krause
Lilliputian Lilith
Catherine Liu
John Lovas
Gerald Lucas
Making Contact
Barry Mauer
Erin O'Connor
Print Culture
Clancy Ratcliff
Matthias Rip
A.G. Rud
Amardeep Singh
Steve Shaviro
Thanks ... Zombie
Vera Tobin
Chuck Tryon
University Diaries
Classics
Michael Hendry
David Meadows
Religion
AKM Adam
Ryan Overbey
Telford Work (moribund)
Library Science
Norma Bruce
Music
Kyle Gann
ionarts
Tim Rutherford-Johnson
Greg Sandow
Scott Spiegelberg
Biology/Medicine
Pradeep Atluri
Bloviator
Anthony Cox
Susan Ferrari (moribund)
Amy Greenwood
La Di Da
John M. Lynch
Charles Murtaugh (moribund)
Paul Z. Myers
Respectful of Otters
Josh Rosenau
Universal Acid
Amity Wilczek (moribund)
Theodore Wong (moribund)
Physics/Applied Physics
Trish Amuntrud
Sean Carroll
Jacques Distler
Stephen Hsu
Irascible Professor
Andrew Jaffe
Michael Nielsen
Chad Orzel
String Coffee Table
Math/Statistics
Dead Parrots
Andrew Gelman
Christopher Genovese
Moment, Linger on
Jason Rosenhouse
Vlorbik
Peter Woit
Complex Systems
Petter Holme
Luis Rocha
Cosma Shalizi
Bill Tozier
Chemistry
"Keneth Miles"
Engineering
Zack Amjal
Chris Hall
University Administration
Frank Admissions (moribund?)
Architecture/Urban development
City Comforts (urban planning)
Unfolio
Panchromatica
Earth Sciences
Our Take
Who Knows?
Bitch Ph.D.
Just Tenured
Playing School
Professor Goose
This Academic Life
Other sources of information
Arts and Letters Daily
Boston Review
Imprints
Political Theory Daily Review
Science and Technology Daily Review