Try This

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 34037, 29 December 1975, Page 15

Try This

The Lauphiiif unrne A variation of JheKennedy Game. < *ne player is given a phra-e which he must answer to even’ question put to him. The player whose question first makes the responder laugh scores a point Nrt a game for gigglers. Personal jokes are usually the funniest to provide as set answers. This author remembers a highly successful game at school in Nelson when aged about nine in which the respondent had to reply “Hanv carrot” to every question he was asked ( hinene ichiapert Probably derives its name from old Chai he Chan films or from the garbled nonsense which “political experts.” w Ito are trying to piedict what the Chinese will do sometimes pass on to one another. However. ■ game is much older than the Cold War and a tine example has lived on in folk-lore from the trench warfare of the First World War 60 years ago. To play the game, players sit tn a circle a little distance apart The first player whispers something to his neighbour who passes it on. in a whisper, to the third player and so on. No one is allowed to repeat w'hat they have whispered. The last player in the chain announces out loud the message he has received and this is compared with the original Chinese whispers can lead to quite extraordinary results, often due more to invention than to defective hearing. In the World War 1 example the original message is said to have been; “Going to advance. Send reinforcements.” By the time this had been whispered through several people back down the trench it emerged as “Going to a dance. Send three and fourpence."