THE GAME FOR THE MILLION

Evening Star, Issue 22328, 2 May 1936, Page 2

THE GAME FOR THE MILLION

[Written by Panache, for the ‘ Evening Star.’] When I was asked to piny the game for the million 1 demurred, not much liking games. My friend explained gently that no uniform was necessary, that a man could play in whatever clothes he happened to bo wearing, that it was not required to stick sprigs in the boots, or put on shin pads, or bare the knees, or roll up the sleeves. 1 weakened, and my friend pressed the advantage, adding that players of this game did not have to shake hands at the beginning or cheer their opponents at the end. They did not have their photographs in the papers. I brightened at this, and he won mo finally by saying that his game was without team spirit, a game for the individual. By this time I had guessed that the game must be a card game, and fresh doubts assailed me. Perhaps it was like bridge. There would bo the ritual of two packs, and elaborate etiquette of cutting, and cluttering impedimenta of pencils and scorers, and a partner more aggressive than 15 men in jerseys and shorts. I fret under this yoke of partnership, a temporary and dreadfully intimate connection that depends on the cut of a card. A partner has to bo feared, bullied, placated, of cajoled. He either says, “ Sorry, partner ” to you or expects you to gulp it at him. If he is pleased he shortens to “ pard,” and if lie sends your freak hand to Mr Culbertson yon become, in the literature of bridge, not dear old “ Anon,” but “north” or “south.” “ There arc no partners in my game,” my friend went on patiently; “ and you don’t need green baize, ft can be played on the kitchen table or on the hearthrug, on the grass if there isn’t a wind, or on an eiderdown. Two can play, or ten.” This sounded too good to be true. There was probably a catch. Bridge was, at least, a democratic game, in which the court had a place analagous to the one it enjoys under the British Constitution. But 1 had recollections of a dreadful game called euchre, rather like nuts-in-Uiuy, where jacks changed sides. “ Arc there bowers ? ” 1 faltered. “ And a Mussolini chap called a joker? ” I was told there were no bowers, but a kind of joker, a supercard, a kind of muse, widen stood, in “ Lexicon,” for any letter. “ Letter? ” 1 shrieked. “ Why did you not say that before? Then it’s not a game with numbers, but with words.”

I grabbed the “ Lexicon ” pack and the book of rules. Fifty-two cards, plenty of vowels, fewer consonants, and the master-card. The rules went into a tiny booklet. It would not be necessary to take lessons expensively from an expert or to swat up leads and discards. The cards are dealt, the remainder of the pack is left on the table, one card is exposed, and the players begin to make words. The dealer may form one complete word and place it faro up on the table; or he may discard one of* his cards, taking either the exposed card or the blind one from the pack; or he may insert a letter in a word already on the table; or he may remove from a word a letter that he wants, and insert another letter from his own hand. The object of the game is to get rid of one’s cards as quickly as possible. AVhcn one player is out the others tot up the numbers on the cards they have left, the master paying the penalty of greatness by counting more than any other card. “ Lexicon,” say its sponsors. “ caters for all types of players. It is a family game, or an instructive game, or a gamble wild and fierce.” After a few games some of the types emerge. Most obtrusive are those that have discovered in the rules a clause about penalties. They have a dictionary on their knees, and they challenge constantly, not to increase their vocabularies, but with the unworthy motive of causing an opponent to miss a turn or suffer a penalty of 10 points. They question spelling, that handmaid of literature about which the creative spirit is not concerned. 'They challenge familiar household words, saying that they arc Scotch, and they produce standard dictionaries to prove that they are in the right. They are purists about slang and about foreign words. They play a pedestrian game, and put down careful, uninspired words like “ cow ’’’and “ hat.”

The passionate player of “ Lexicon ” is not as these men, ' T c scorns monosyllables and strives for a wors that requires all his 10 letters. He would rather pay the penalty of a full hand than expose an unworthy, unpcetic word. His st. -dard is so high that he is usually the first to bo expelled, leaving the “ cows ” and “ hats ” to plod onward for the prize. It is enough for him that he occasionally achieves a word like “ leprechaun ” or “ usquebaugh,” though the “ cows ” and “ hats ” do not admire such flights. High-minded players who scorn to exact penalties or consult a dictionary about other people’s spelling have to suffer for their superiority. Scientists, especially, take advantage of a layman’s trust and put down unpronounceable combinations of z’s and q’s, swearing that the word denotes a common geological specimen. Players who, overriding the rules, persuade their friends to admit i roper names, find that queer-looking words arc nnblnshingly asserted to he the names of Japanese painters or islands near the Gulf Stream. Liberal players who allow such compounds as “ logrash ” find that people take advantage of the richness of the language and try to include such words as ” pigwash.”

It n fun to alter or to add to words that others have put down—to make, for instance. “ mother ” into “ smothered ”; but it is expedient to make such changes sparingly. A psychoanalyst—and there arc many amateurs about just _ now—would immediately suspect homicidal tendencies, probably some perversion of the redipus complex. It is not necessary to ho a psychoanalyst to get interesting glimpses into the characters rf those with whom one plays “ Lexicon.” Bonds are forged with total sti angers who put down a word one admires. Old ladies give delightful hints of the depravity of their vocahu'ary. Like certain patent medicines, children love it, and it does them good.