Balderdash!

Balderdash is one of my favorite games of all time! It all started when I was about eight years old. We were at my grandparent's house for a holiday (I don't remember which one), and some of the extended family was there too. They brought Balderdash, and I was allowed to join in. For those who have never played, this is how it works: there is a deck of cards, each of which contains a handful of outlandish words that no one has ever heard of! Often, they cannot even be found in dictionaries. Anyway, to play a standard game, you need at least three players (but the more the merrier!). Each turn, one person gets to be the dasher, and takes a card from the deck, and reads a word to the other players. Each person has a slip of paper upon which they write the word, and a definition that they make up - except the dasher, who writes the real definition. Then, all papers are turned into the dasher, and he reads them, and everybody votes on which they think is the correct definition. Based on who votes for yours, how often you can guess the correct definition, and how often people guess the right definition when you are the dasher, you earn points and move your piece along the board.

My first turn as dasher, I pulled a card with the word "ratoon." To this day, I don't remember the real definition, but that first round I didn't quite understand the game. Instead of writing the real definition, I made one up: "a rotten raccoon." So, that round there was no real definition. Such was my induction into the world of Balderdash.

Despite that first blunder, I quickly became proficient at the game, and was quite often the winner in family games thereafter. I think I am best remembered for my definition of flississ: A certain monastic order that lives on the edge of cliffs and makes cotton candy. I was probably about 10 or 12 when I wrote that definition, and my Dad (among others), didn't realize that I knew the word monastic, thus I garnered myself several votes. Later in that same game, I think I earned even more votes by using the word "baobab" (which I learned from The Little Prince). Someone else defined flississ as: "One of Flipper's long-lost cousins." Some of my favorite real definitions would have to be:

omphaloskepsis - contemplating one's navel
somnambulence - sleepwalking (For some reason, I always get this confused with sonoluminescence, which was once thought to be a promising field for fusion research. Now, the word I always think of for either of these concepts is somnoluminescence, which would amount to glowing in one's sleep.)
lexiphane - one who uses long words to impress others (guilty as charged)

At some point, Beyond Balderdash came along, and added several new categories to the game, in addition to words. These categories included dates (what happend on this day in history?), acronyms (what does this stand for?), names (what is this person known for?), and movies (what is the plot of this movie?). Movies are hilarious. My best plots have been:

The Nut Farm (actually, I think this may have been a combination plot co-written by Rachel) - The management of an insane asylum have trouble when the inmates start running away to the chestnut orchard next door, climbing the trees, and refusing to come down.

Life is Cheap but Toilet Paper is Expensive - A small town restaurant owner becomes involved in a mafia plot. Eventually, he is double-crossed and murdered by the mafia, and the body is temporarily disguised as a mummy in a school play.

My favorite actual movie (which I have not seen) is Wild Women of Wongo, which Balderdash describes as: A group of ugly cave men living with a group of beautiful cave women meet a group of beautiful cave men living with a group of ugly cave women.

Of course, in years of playing Balderdash, there are other stories than just the definitions. For instance, Rachel and I once played Balderdash with some family friends, Jason and Justin. In this particular game, Rachel was quite behind, as usual (she was just too phlegmatic to get really competitive about it). Jason was the dasher, and when the definitions were read, one said "I have no idea what this word means. Please vote for me anyway." I felt a terrible pang of guilt for always letting Rachel lose so much. I imagined how I would feel if I always lost. So, I suddenly burst out, "Oh! Poor Rachel! Should I vote for her? OK, Rachel, I'll give you a sympathy vote." ...and proceeded to give her a big hug. I'd pay quite alot of money to see the expressions that were going on behind my back as I did that. As it turned out, Justin wrote that definition - so I was the only one who didn't know that. Jason knew because he was the dasher, Rachel knew because she didn't write it, and now neither had I, obviously. And, of course, Justin knew because he did write it.

Adrian's first game of Balderdash is also very memorable. Apparently, beef is not very common or popular in Europe, at least not in Romania. However, my mom grew up on a farm that raised both wheat and cattle, so beef has always been a staple of our diet. So, when Adrian came to our house for dinner one night and my mom made beef ribs, Adrian got to taste them for the first time and pretty much fell in love (maybe that's why he wanted to marry me so bad?). When we played Balderdash with him, he didn't really take the game seriously, and just wrote every definition about beef ribs. I was a bit miffed with him for this, because I REALLY like Balderdash, and he wasn't even trying *pout*. Last time we played Balderdash, he finally did take it seriously - and won! Not bad for a non-native English speaker!

Now, a word as to Balderdash strategies. The aim of the game is really just to have fun, and to that end the best strategy is always to write and to choose the funniest definitions possible. However, if you can't think of anything funny, or just want to win, there are a couple of things to try. There are methods that are more-or-less cheating, and I won't discuss those here, but I usually have two strategies to avoid writer's block. The first strategy is to try to take what the parts of the words sound like, and create a definition from that. The other is to think of something as totally random as possible, and not even try to relate it to the word. As for guessing the real definitions, I've had the advantage of playing the game so many years with the same people, who I have also known for years, and I find it fairly easy to pick out who wrote which definitions. I've also gotten a fairly good grasp of the grammatical style of the game writers, so it's fairly easy to pick out the right vs. the wrong definitions. I think this is how I managed to win for so many years. At one point, I was dumb enough to explain my tactic to the rest of my family, and at that point my Dad started imitating everybody else's style! He's actually quite good at it, and I can't remember ever having won a single game since he started doing that :P

Anyway, that's a little bit about Balderdash, and why I consider it my favorite game, If you've never played it, you should!