[kelseyfrog]

I'm a big fan of killing time on long drives with friendly word games. One of my favorites is a mix between rhyming and square theory. Here's how it works: one player picks two words that rhyme perfectly. Then, for each of those words, they choose a clue word, usually a synonym, but any kind of related word is fair game. They say those two clue words out loud, and the other players have to guess the original rhyming pair.

What makes it fun is trying to reverse-engineer the original rhyme from the clues. It's like solving a little logic puzzle. It's easy to come up with new puzzles, but cracking them can be surprisingly tricky. Still, the structure gives just enough to keep it solvable most of the time.

1. Somewhat described here https://bestlifeonline.com/jeopardy-rhyme-time-opera-version... It's actually quite difficult to find a description of the category many of us are already familiar with.

[vunderba]

Our family plays "Match Three" during long drives where one person comes up with three words and whoever correctly answers with a word that can complete or precede any of them becomes "it" and chooses the next set.

Homophones and proper nouns are considered acceptable.

So for example: (Fox, Lone, Crossed)

The answer would be: Star

  Star Fox - a well known rail shooter originally on the SNES

  Lone Starr - the only man who would dare give a raspberry to Dark Helmet

  Star Crossed - a Shakespearean reference to two people whose relationship is doomed

[kelseyfrog]

Love it! Does the person who comes up with three words have the connecting word in mind from the beginning, or no?

[vunderba]

Thanks yeah it's a very fun game! When you're creating a new "match three" on the fly, I find it's easiest to start with a common word and work your way backwards until you've got three that fit.

There have been occasions where the answer was not the intended one, but it still fits all three and that's considered fair game!

[kindkid]

For example: "out fox", "loan out", and "crossed out"?

[Someone]

Reminds me of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhyming_slang: “The construction of rhyming slang involves replacing a common word with a phrase of two or more words, the last of which rhymes with the original word; then, in almost all cases, omitting, from the end of the phrase, the secondary rhyming word (which is thereafter implied)”

[jamiek88]

Yep, ‘that’s pony’ means ‘that’s crap’. From pony and trap. You omit the actual word that rhymes.

Nice whistle mate! (I like your suit, from whistle and flute).

It’s fun to figure them out.

[Agentlien]

A few years ago I did something similar in a group chat with some friends. No rhyme, but video game titles reworded using rough synonyms.

Here are some examples with answers in rot13:

Strange, this reunion = Zntvp gur Tngurevat

Boat pork refuge = Nexunz Nflyhz

Donkeybutt taverns gospel = Nffnffvaf Perrq

Caring for the elderly = QBGN

Belongs to me create = Zvarpensg

Superclock = Birejngpu

Top Stories = Ncrk Yrtraqf

Skyline no morning = Ubevmba Mreb Qnja

[gostsamo]

My personal recommendation is this game1. Not for travel, but a very good in forcing interesting associations and making you mad at your partner, which is a certified sign of a good game.

1 https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/178900/codenames

[gms7777]

If you like codenames, you might also enjoy decrypto [1], it scratches a very similar part of my brain. There's a set of secret words, and the codemaster needs to give clues that are specific enough that if you know the secret words, you can make the connection, but vague enough that you can't guess the secret words.

[1] https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/225694/decrypto

[finnh]

My family calls that game "pink mink"!

[jacobolus]

As far as I know the most common name is "hink pink", if anyone wants to look this up (or sometimes "hinky pinky"). Here's a 1981 book, https://archive.org/details/hinkpinkbookorwh00burn/ and here's a short description from the 50s, https://archive.org/details/realbookofgames0000unse/page/134... Searching further, apparently Hink Pink was the name of an 18th century pirate ship; I'm not sure if there's a relation to the game.

According to this 1941 Life Magazine issue, teenage girls in Atlanta were making up rhyming pairs like this at the time under the name "stinky pinky". https://archive.org/details/Life-1941-01-27-Vol-10-No-4/mode... Webster's Dictionary from the 60s has the game listed under that name, https://archive.org/details/webstersthirdnew0000phil_l0b1/mo... and that name also seems to continue to today, e.g. by the radio show Loveline.

[kelseyfrog]

Thank you! What a fantastic find. This is exactly the kind of book I would have checked out at the library as a child.

It's possible I found this decades ago and the origin of how I learned this game was lost to time :)

[staffordrj]

I made a daily game version of this https://rystaf.github.io/hinklepinkle/

[SamBam]

Today's was... the same word, spelled once with the US spelling and once with the British spelling?

[sings]

Love the idea but today’s was not a good one.

[genewitch]

for the record, i can't find any combination of those words in my transcriptions of loveline shows, although i don't have them all, and it is possible there are up to 50% transcription errors. there is 1 reference to "Stinky Linky" but it appears unrelated, "what's the linky?" "freckles" - i got excited that i found it but looking at the context it was in vain.

i have five clean references to "as a mason jar" so my collection is fairly complete ;-)

note: ripgrep 4.079s wall; ag (silversearcher) 5.916s wall; grep 6.940s wall

[jacobolus]

I am only barely familiar with the show, but people online mentioned it several times in connection with the game; apparently they played it as a commonly recurring segment with its own theme song. A web search turns up e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxA2J5W1A7g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhdl_iKrVEQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clmPQPvPkTo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5ciP_ZRMng

[genewitch]

Oh, then i concur with your prior statement that it "continues [...] today"; i define "LoveLine" differently. Someday i'll find the time to get "fills" - i only have 5.5 years fully transcribed.

Sorry about that.

[jonny_eh]

We call it Awful Waffle, based on a Board Game called Brain Strain. They had "Awful Waffle" as an example.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/8785/brain-strain

I made a proof-of-concept daily game: https://awfulwaffle.jonabrams.com/

[mattclarkdotnet]

Is the example meant to rhyme, or is it an example of a subtle category of "words that only rhyme in some English accents"? "Offle Woffle" is somewhat standard American English, while "Orful Warful" would be British English.

[cooperaustinj]

Do you know any unfriendly word games I can try?

[kelseyfrog]

You could add the additional constraint that the words have to insult the guesser based on their unique psychological vulnerabilities. Hope that helps!

[deadbabe]

Freestyle rap battles

[kragen]

You're right, that's the canonical unfriendly word game!

[stronglikedan]

Perhaps give the Argument Clinic a call.

[hypertexthero]

FYI https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_Clinic

[kragen]

Posting on HN counts.

[ahazred8ta]

Philip K. Dick's word game had gems like "The male offspring in addition gets out of bed. By serious constricting path." (earnest hemming way)

[bdr]

Stinky Pinky! https://www.nosupplies.com/play/stinky-pinky

[KolibriFly]

That game sounds like a total brain teaser in the best way