Word For Word
This is based on word association, an investigative technique in psychology which can be used as a game. In the word association game, players in turn say whatever word comes into their mind first after hearing the previous word. "Word for Word" is a word disassociation game: players may say any word as long as it has no connection whatsoever to the previous word. This is surprisingly difficult to do.
This game produces amazing strings of nonsense. Furthermore, as with the other elimination games, the elimination rule is not strictly followed. Fairly direct links between words are occasionally permitted, but words may be deemed connected based on bizarre and tortuous chains of association. For example, in one episode, a player said "cardigan" and the next "pier". Another then said "Cardigan has a pier" and was corrected: "Cardigan was a peer". One of the next few words was "pullover", and was buzzed because "you can pull over to see Cardigan's pier".
Barry Cryer has a notable tendency to take two consecutively uttered words, such as "skimp" and "leave", put them together and claim that there was a 1960s rock band with this name. For instance, the words "aubergine" and "favourite" were connected thus, in the 30th Anniversary Special, where Cryer then corrected himself, saying it was in fact "Aubergine Vincent".
Because connections are allowed between words that are not uttered consecutively, one way to play the game (favoured by Graeme) is to say alternate words that are all connected. In one round, Graeme and Barry gave the sequence "shampoo", "dilatory", "conditioner", "fecund", "hair", at which point they were stopped when Tim pointed out that "a hair, out of Graeme, drops off every fecund".
A running joke established in recent series is that Graeme Garden, when told that it is his turn, would reply "me?" When Jack Dee confirms "yes", Garden would say "That was my word." This is sometimes followed up: the next time Graeme is told it is his turn, he would say "again?" Upon being told "yes", he would again explain that that was his word.
Read more about this topic: List Of Games On I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue
Famous quotes containing the word word:
“The vines of her arms
didn’t cling to the ends of his clothes,
or did she plant herself in the doorway,
hurl herself at his feet,
or utter the word “Stay!”
But as that fool began to go
at the time when it was dark with swarming clouds,
the slim girl blocked her lover’s way
with only a rising river
made with her flood of tears.”
—Amaru (c. seventh century A.D.)