Card-game names

[Laurence Horn]

At 2:57 AM -0500 3/9/06, Meredith Dixon wrote:
>On Thu, 9 Mar 2006 00:54:45 -0500, you [m a m] wrote:
>
>>Nor I, but I know at least two nicknames in Hearts for the Queen of Spades,
>>which is the card you least want to get:
>>         Dirty Dora
>>         the Black Bitch
>
>I know her as the Black Maria.

Ditto, and pronounced /m@ rai @/, as in the way they call the wind.

Incidentally, she isn't *always* the card you least want to
get--remember the Shooting the Moon option.

(I never heard the game called anything but "Hearts", but the Queen
of Spades did have other less delicate names than the Black Maria.)

As for Wilson's other queries, I've always heard "Crazy Eights", not
"Eights", although I'd probably recognize it under either moniker.

larry

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