Telephone (game)
From Free net encyclopedia
| Telephone | |
|---|---|
| Players | 3 or more |
| Age range | 5 and up |
| Setup time | < 5 minutes |
| Playing time | 5–15 minutes |
| Rules complexity | Low |
| Strategy depth | Low |
| Random chance | Low |
| Skills required | listening, whispering |
| {{{footnotes|}}} | |
Contents |
How to play
As many players as possible line up such that they can whisper to their immediate neighbours but not hear any players further away. The player at the 'beginning' of the line thinks of a phrase (or, in the case of young children, is supplied one by an adult), and whispers it as quietly as possible to her/his neighbour. The neighbour then passes on the message to the next player to the best of his/her ability. The passing continues in this fashion until it reaches the player at the 'end' of the line, who calls out the message s/he received.
If the game has been 'successful', the final message will bear little or no resemblance to the original, due to the cumulative effect of mistakes along the line. Often, however, the message does not reach the end of the line, due to someone accidentally speaking too loudly. Deliberately changing the phrase is often considered cheating, but if the starting phrase is badly picked, there may be disappointingly little natural change.
Purpose
The game has no objective, and no winner - the entertainment comes from comparing the original and final messages. Even if the line is not completed, the last few people to receive the message can compare this with the original, and some messages will be unrecognisable after only a few steps.
Besides being a fun game, the meaning created by this activity is the important truth about how easily information can become corrupted by indirect communication. The game has been used in schools to simulate the spread of gossip and its harmful effects, and has implications in many adult topics like bureaucracy, politics and Academia.
Examples
A common (likely apocryphal) story in the UK is of a general who sent the message "Send reinforcements, we are going to advance" back to HQ. After passing through many intermediaries it finally arrived as "Send three and fourpence, we are going to a dance".
In the media
In "The PTA Disbands", an episode of The Simpsons, Bart attempts to spread "Skinner said the teachers will crack any minute" throughout the crowd of Springfield Elementary School teachers. By the time it reaches Mrs. Krabappel, it has turned into "Skinner said the teachers will crack any minute, purple monkey dishwasher."
The following is excerpted from the movie Johnny Dangerously:
- Lil: Get this to Johnny on the grapevine. Vermin is going to kill Johnny's brother at the savoy theater tomorrow night. Got it.
- Polly: Got it.
- Polly: Vermon is going to kill Johnny's brother at the savoy theater pass it on.
- Prisoner: Vermon is going to kill Johnny's brother at the savoy theater tonight pass it on.
- Prisoner: Vermon is going to kill Johnny's mother at the savoy theater tonight pass it on.
- Prisoner: Vermon's mother is going to kill Johnny tonight at the savoy theater pass it on.
- Prisoner: [gibberish]
- Prisoner: There's a message on the grapevine Johnny.
- Johnny: Yeh. What is it?
- Prisoner: Johnny and the mothers are playin' Stompin At the Savoy in Vermont tonight.
- Johnny: Vermin's going to kill my brother at the savoy theater tonight.
- Prisoner: I didn't say that.
- Johnny: No, but I know this grapevine.
From the January 8, 2006 comic strip Zits:
- [Frame 1]
- Mom: [on phone] Sara? It's Connie, Jeremy's mom.
- Sara: Oh, hi!
- [Frame 2]
- Mom: [on phone] Jeremy must have turned his cell phone off. Can you give him a message?
- Sara: Sure!
- [Frame 3]
- Sara: [on phone] D'ijon? Sara. Tell Jeremy that his mom locked her keys in the car, so he should get a ride home with Hector.
- D'ijon: Got it.
- [Frame 4]
- D'ijon: [on phone] Zuma? D'ijon. Give Jeremy this message.
- Zuma: 'K.
- [Frame 5]
- Zuma: [on phone] Thanks Brittany.
- Brittany: No problem. I'll pass it on.
- [Frame 6]
- Brittany: [on phone] Pierce, I have a message for Jeremy.
- Pierce: Go.
- [Frame 7]
- Pierce: Give Hector a ride home. Your mom locked her cheese in a jar.
- [Frame 8]
- Pierce: ...Or something like that.
- Jeremy: [thinking] And she wonders why I screen her calls...
Other names
This game is also known in various parts of the world as broken telephone, whisper down the lane, gossip
- развален телефон (Bulgarian for "broken telephone").
- El telèfon (Catalan for "the telephone")
- 以訛傳訛 (Chinese for "pass wrong with wrong")
- pokvareni telefon (Croatian for "broken telephone")
- tichá pošta (Czech for "silent mail")
- rikkinäinen puhelin (Finnish for "broken telephone")
- téléphone arabe (French for "Arabian telephone").
- stille Post (German for "silent mail")
- χαλασμένο τηλέφωνο (Greek for "broken telephone")
- telefono senza fili (Italian for "telephone without wires")
- klusie telefoni (Latvian for "silent telephones")
- głuchy telefon (Polish for "the deaf telephone").
- telefone-sem-fio (Portuguese for "wireless telephone").
- telefonul fără fir (Romanian for "telephone without wire")
- глухой телефон (Russian for "deaf telephone")
- el teléfono estropeado/dañado/descompuesto (Spanish for "broken telephone").
- viskleken (Swedish for "the whispering game")
- Gluvi Telefoni (Serbian Just like the Polish version.)
- Chinese Whispers (UK and Australia)
- טלפון שבור (Hebrew for "broken telephone")
See also
- Eat Poop You Cat, a variation involving drawing and writing
- Translation relay, a version involving translations into different languages
- Epistemology, the study of the properties of knowledge and truth
Other uses
- Telephone Game is also the name of a game played on The Price Is Right for a brief period in late 1978 and early 1979.ca:El telèfon