Re: META: "Chinese whispers"

The game is called Telephone in Canada, like the way your voice can be
garbeled by a telephone (or a text can be destroyed by an incorrect
chinese to english translation by a computer)

On Sat, Feb 28, 2009 at 4:43 PM, Peter Collier
<petecollier@...> wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> From: "Mark J. Reed" <markjreed@...>
> Sent: Saturday, February 28, 2009 2:26 AM
> To: <CONLANG@...>
> Subject: META: "Chinese whispers"
>
>> Sorry, but am I the only one a bit bothered by the subject of the
>> other thread?  I don't know the history of the term but it has the
>> terribly politically incorrect flavor of terms like "Indian giving",
>> "going Dutch", "Chinese fire drill", and so on, and I'm kind of
>> surprised it passed unremarked.  Maybe the name is purely a linguistic
>> reference, to people passing along messages in a language they don't
>> speak, or something?
>>
>> --
>> Sent from my mobile device
>>
>> Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>
>
>
> No,- it's a children's game - they all sit in a circle and the first child
> whispers something to the next, and it gets passed on around the circle.
> When it gets back to the beginining it's compared to the original.
>
> I'm surprised you've not heard of it! Maybe its just a British thing, or
> perhaps we're different ages?
>
> It's quite commonplace - I can't imagine it's in anyway a pejorative term,
> although to be fair I suppose you would have to ask a Chinese person's
> opinion.
>
>
> P.
>
>