Chinese whispers (Commonwealth English) or the telephone game (American English) is an internationally popular children's game in which players form a line, and the first player comes up with a message and whispers it to the ear of the second person in the line.
Quotes tagged as 'time-passing' Showing 1-30 of 302
- MESSAGE CIRCLE: Let children sit in a circle and secretly pass a MESSAGE around the circle. (The children will sometimes PRETEND to be passing the 'message' and other times they really WILL put the small slip of paper with the 'message' in the next child's hand.
- “I'm terrified of the thought of time passing (or whatever is meant by that phrase) whether I 'do' anything or not. In a way I may believe, deep down, that doing nothing acts as a brake on 'time's - it doesn't of course.
“Sure, everything is ending,' Jules said, 'but not yet.”
―
“No matter how much time passes, no matter what takes place in the interim, there are some things we can never assign to oblivion, memories we can never rub away.”
―
“You never know beforehand what people are capable of, you have to wait, give it time, it's time that rules, time is our gambling partner on the other side of the table and it holds all the cards of the deck in its hand, we have to guess the winning cards of life, our lives.”
―
tags: gambling, life-and-living, time, time-passing
“…the sad part is, that I will probably end up loving you without you for much longer than I loved you when I knew you.
Some people might find that strange.
But the truth of it is that the amount of love you feel for someone and the impact they have on you as a person, is in no way relative to the amount of time you have known them.”
―
tags: always-yours, beautiful, beautiful-quote, break-up-quote, break-ups, breakup, breakup-quote, breakup-quotes, broken-heart, deep-love, deep-love-quotes, deep-thoughts, feelings, feelings-and-emotions, feelings-of-love, grief, grief-and-loss, grief-quotes, grieving, heartbreak, heartbreak-quotes, heartbroken, heartbroken-quotes, i-miss-you, loss, loss-of-love, loss-quote, loss-quotes, lost, lost-love, lost-love-quotes, love, love-quotations, love-quote, love-quotes, love-quotes-and-sayings, memories, memories-quotes, memory, memory-quote, missing-someone, missing-you-quotes, quote, quotes, ranata-suzuki, ranata-suzuki-quote, reminders, reminisce, reminiscence, reminiscing, sad, sad-quote, sad-quotes, sadness, secret-love, the-one-that-got-away, the-only-one, the-past, time, time-passing, time-quote, time-quotes, unrequited, unrequited-love, without-you
“I know this much: that there is objective time, but also subjective time, the kind you wear on the inside of your wrist, next to where the pulse lies. And this personal time, which is the true time, is measured in your relationship to memory.”
―
“We've lost a lot of years, but you can't lose love. Not real love. It stays locked inside you, ready for whenever you are strong enough to find it again.”
―
tags: compulsion, love, martina-boone, patience-and-love, real-love, relationships, relationships-love, time-passing
“Everything passes, but nothing entirely goes away.”
―
“People parted, years passed, they met again- and the meeting proved no reunion, offered no warm memories, only the acid knowledge that time had passed and things weren't as bright or attractive as they had been.”
―
“She knew that this day, this feeling, couldn't last forever. Everything passed; that was partly why it was so beautiful. Things would get difficult again. But that was okay too.
The bravery was in moving forward, no matter what.”
―
“When I was fifteen, all I wanted was to go off to some other world, a place beyond anybody’s reach. A place beyond the flow of time.”
- But there’s no place like that in this world.
- Exactly. Which is why I’m living here, in this world where things are continually damaged, where the heart is fickle, where time flows past without a break.”
―
tags: impermanence, letting-go, living-in-the-moment, living-in-the-present, time-passing, transience
“I'm terrified of the thought of time passing (or whatever is meant by that phrase) whether I 'do' anything or not. In a way I may believe, deep down, that doing nothing acts as a brake on 'time's - it doesn't of course. It merely adds the torment of having done nothing, when the time comes when it really doesn't matter if you've done anything or not.”
―
“Es zinu mirkļus dienas garumā un dienas mirkļa īsumā.”
―
“For children, childhood is timeless. It is always the present. Everything is in the present tense. Of course, they have memories. Of course, time shifts a little for them and Christmas comes round in the end. But they don’t feel it. Today is what they feel, and when they say ‘When I grow up,’ there is always an edge of disbelief—how could they ever be other than what they are?”
―
tags: age, childhood, innocence, nostalgia, time, time-passing
“I fancied my luck to be witnessing yet another full moon. True, I’d seen hundreds of full moons in my life, but they were not limitless. When one starts thinking of the full moon as a common sight that will come again to one’s eyes ad-infinitum, the value of life is diminished and life goes by uncherished. ‘This may be my last moon,’ I sighed, feeling a sudden sweep of sorrow; and went back to reading more of The Odyssey.”
―
tags: full-moon, homer, life, moon, nature, poetry, romanticism, sorrow, the-odyssey, the-wanderess, time, time-passing
“As the Wheel of Time turns, places wear many names. Men wear many names, many faces. Different faces, but always the same man. Yet no one knows the Great Pattern the Wheel weaves, or even the Pattern of an Age. We can only watch, and study, and hope.”
―
“I avoid looking at the clock, fearing the slow passing of time that will only seem slower if I watch its progress.”
―
“You don't have time, Len. That is the most bitter and the most beautiful piece of advice I can offer. If you don't have what you want now, you don't have what you want.”
―
“That’s a funny thing: you think, when awful things happen, everything else just stops, like you would forget to pee and eat and get thirsty, but it’s not really true. It’s like you and your body are two separate things, like your body is betraying you, chugging on, idiotic and animal, craving water and sandwiches and bathroom breaks while your world falls apart.”
―
“The lives of all people flow through time, and, regardless of how brutal one moment may be, how filled with grief or pain or fear, time flows through all lives equally.”
―
“And as the years have passed, the time has grown longer. The sad truth is that what I could recall in five seconds all too needed ten, then thirty, then a full minute - like shadows lengthening at dusk. Someday, I suppose, the shadows will be swallowed up in darkness.”
―
“Time flames like a paraffin stove / and what burns are the minutes I live.”
―
“Do not constantly spend your time complaining about a problem you may be having or may be up against, focus your time toward correcting the problem. Always remember, Time is value!”
―
tags: accomplishment, bad-habits, break-through, inspirational, lessons-learned, time-passing, wise
“I have liv'd long enough for others, like the Dog in the Wheel, and it is now the Season to begin for myself: I cannot change that Thing call'd Time, but I can alter its Posture and, as Boys do turn a looking-glass against the Sunne, so I will dazzle you all.”
―
“The summer stretched out the daylight as if on a rack. Each moment was drawn out until its anatomy collapsed. Time broke down. The day progressed in an endless sequence of dead moments.”
―
“some mornings... I sit at the kitchen table shaking salt into the hairs on my arm, and a feeling shoves up in me: it's finished. Everything went past without me.”
―
“(Drácula) Qué pocos días son necesarios para que pase un siglo.”
―
“There are those of us who learn to live completely in the moment. For such people the Past vanishes and the future loses meaning. There is only the Present, which means that two of the three Aalim are surplus to requirements. And then there are those of us who are trapped in yesterdays, in the memory of a lost love, or a childhood home, or a dreadful crime. And some people live only for a better tomorrow; for them the past ceases to exist”
―
“Shadows fell on them like predators as the light went out.”
―
tags: dark, dread, fear-of-the-dark, suspense, time, time-passing
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Chinese whispers| Genre(s) | Children's games |
|---|
| Players | Three or more |
|---|
| Setup time | None |
|---|
| Playing time | User determined |
|---|
| Random chance | Medium |
|---|
| Skill(s) required | Speaking, listening |
|---|
Chinese whispers (Commonwealth English) or telephone (American English) [1] is an internationally popular children's game[2] in which players form a line, and the first player comes up with a message and whispers it to the ear of the second person in the line. The second player repeats the message to the third player, and so on. When the last player is reached, they announce the message they heard to the entire group. The first person then compares the original message with the final version. Although the objective is to pass around the message without it becoming garbled along the way, part of the enjoyment is that, regardless, this usually ends up happening. Errors typically accumulate in the retellings, so the statement announced by the last player differs significantly from that of the first player, usually with amusing or humorous effect. Reasons for changes include anxiousness or impatience, erroneous corrections, the difficult-to-understand mechanism of whispering, and that some players may deliberately alter what is being said to guarantee a changed message by the end of the line.
The game is often played by children as a party game or on the playground. It is often invoked as a metaphor for cumulative error, especially the inaccuracies as rumours or gossip spread,[1] or, more generally, for the unreliability of human recollection or even oral traditions.
Etymology[edit]
As the game is popular among children worldwide, it is also known under various other names depending on locality, such as Russian scandal,[3]whisper down the lane, broken telephone(In Poland), operator, grapevine, gossip, don't drink the milk, secret message, the messenger game, and pass the message among others.[1] In France, it is called téléphone arabe (Arabic telephone) or téléphone sans fil (wireless telephone).[4] In Malaysia, this game is commonly referred to as telefon rosak, and in Greece as spazmeno tilefono (σπασμένο τηλέφωνο) which both translate to broken telephone. In the United States, the game is known under the name telephone – which in this use is never shortened to the colloquial and more common word phone.
Historians trace Westerners' use of the word Chinese to denote 'confusion' and 'incomprehensibility' to the earliest contacts between Europeans and Chinese people in the 17th century, and attribute it to Europeans' inability to understand China's culture and worldview.[5]Using the phrase 'Chinese whispers' suggested a belief that the Chinese language itself is not understandable.[6] Additionally Chinese people have historically been stereotyped by Westerners as secretive or inscrutable.[7] The more fundamental metonymic use of the name of a foreign language to represent a broader class of situations involving foreign languages or difficulty of understanding a language is also captured in older idioms, such as 'It's all Greek to me'.
The game has no winner: the entertainment comes from comparing the original and final messages. Intermediate messages may also be compared; some messages will become unrecognizable after only a few steps.
As well as providing amusement, the game can have educational value. It shows how easily information can become corrupted by indirect communication. The game has been used in schools to simulate the spread of gossip and its supposed harmful effects.[8] It can also be used to teach young children to moderate the volume of their voice,[9] and how to listen attentively;[10] in this case, a game is a success if the message is transmitted accurately with each child whispering rather than shouting. It can also be used for older or adult learners of a foreign language, where the challenge of speaking comprehensibly, and understanding, is more difficult because of the low volume, and hence a greater mastery of the fine points of pronunciation is required.[11]
Variants[edit]
A variant of Chinese whispers is called Rumors. In this version of the game, when players transfer the message, they deliberately change one or two words of the phrase (often to something more humorous than the previous message). Intermediate messages can be compared. What an individual player changes in the message often says something about the player.[according to whom?]
A game of Eat Poop You Cat, starting with 'Only the good die young' and ending with 'The three vikings visit Christ'.
The pen-and-paper game Telephone Pictionary (also known as Eat Poop You Cat) is played by alternately writing and illustrating captions, the paper being folded so that each player can only see the previous participant's contribution.[12] Commercial boardgame versions Telestrations[13] and Cranium Scribblish were both released in 2009. The game has also been implemented online at Broken Picture Telephone, Drawception and other sites.
A translation relay is a variant in which the first player produces a text in a given language, together with a basic guide to understanding, which includes a lexicon, an interlinear gloss, possibly a list of grammatical morphemes, comments on the meaning of difficult words, etc. (everything except an actual translation). The text is passed on to the following player, who tries to make sense of it and casts it into his/her language of choice, then repeating the procedure, and so on. Each player only knows the translation done by his immediate predecessor, but customarily the relay master or mistress collects all of them. The relay ends when the last player returns the translation to the beginning player. The game has been played in the conlang community.[14]
Another variant of Chinese whispers is shown on Ellen's Game of Games under the name of Say Whaaaat?. However, the differences is that the 4 players will be wearing earphones, therefore the players have to read their lips.
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^ abcBlackmore, Susan J. (2000). The Meme Machine. Oxford University Press. p. x. ISBN0-19-286212-X.
The form and timing of the tic undoubtedly mutated over the generations, as in the childhood game of Chinese Whispers (Americans call it Telephone)
- ^'Oxford English Dictionary'. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 2008-04-14.
- ^Gryski, Camilla (1998). Let's Play: Traditional Games of Childhood, p.36. Kids Can. ISBN1550744976.
- ^'Téléphone arabe'. fr.wikipedia.org. Retrieved 25 July 2018.[circular reference]
- ^Dale, Corinne H. (2004). Chinese Aesthetics and Literature: A Reader. New York: State University of New York Press. pp. 15–25. ISBN0-7914-6022-3.
- ^Ballaster, Rosalind (2005). Fabulous Orients: fictions of the East in England, 1662–1785. Oxford University Press. pp. 202–3. ISBN0-19-926733-2.
The sinophobic name points to the centuries-old tradition in Europe of representing spoken Chinese as an incomprehensible and unpronounceable combination of sounds.
- ^Young, Linda W. L. (1994-05-26). Crosstalk and Culture in Sino-American Communication. Cambridge University Press. ISBN9780521416191.
- ^Jackman, John; Wendy Wren (1999). 'Skills Unit 8: the Chinese princess'. Nelson English Bk. 2 Teachers' Resource Book. Nelson Thornes. ISBN0-17-424605-6.
Play 'Chinese Whispers' to demonstrate how word-of-mouth messages or stories quickly become distorted
- ^Collins, Margaret (2001). Because We're Worth It: Enhancing Self-esteem in Young Children. Sage. p. 55. ISBN1-873942-09-5.
Explain that speaking quietly can be more effective in communication than shouting, although clarity is important. You could play 'Chinese Whispers' to illustrate this!
- ^Barrs, Kathie (1994). music works: music education in the classroom with children from five to nine years. Belair. p. 48. ISBN0-947882-28-6.
Listening skills:...Play Chinese Whispers
- ^For example, see Hill, op. cit.; or Morris, Peter; Alan Wesson (2000). Lernpunkt Deutsch.: students' book. Nelson Thornes. p. viii. ISBN0-17-440267-8.
Simple games for practising vocabulary and/or numbers: ... Chinese Whispers: ...the final word is compared with the first to see how similar (or not!) it is.
- ^Jones, Myfanwy (4 November 2010). 'Parlour Games for Modern Families'. Penguin Adult – via Google Books.
- ^'Eat Poop You Cat: A silly, fun, and free party game'. annarbor.com. Retrieved 17 March 2018.
- ^http://www.kneequickie.com/kq/Polyglottal_Telephone
External links[edit]
- Broken Picture Telephone, an online game based on Chinese Whispers; recently re-activated.
- Drawception, another online game which uses the concept.
- Chinese Whispers, explains the game and offers some examples.
- Global Gossip Game, a game of Gossip that passes from library to library around the world on International Games Day @ your library.
- The Misemotions Game, a variation of the Chinese Whispers where participants have to properly convey emotions instead of text messages.
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