Card-game names

[Barbara Need]

>  > 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
>
>And, of course, Larry, that's my point: you say "hearts," but "crazy
>eights." You mix a short form with a long form! That's a new one.

Well, I'm with Larry. It's Hearts and Crazy Eights (and, on occasion,
Crazy Aces, Crazy Twos, etc., when eights as wild cards got boring).

Barbara

Barbara Need
UChicago


>Heretofore, my experience has been that people use only the short forms or
>use only the long forms, totally unpredictably with repect to the usual
>parameters. And, right off the bat, I discover that there's a third
>possibility: at least one speaker who selects one from Column A and one from
>Column B! As the Stones, among others, have remarked, "Ain't that a bitch?"
>There's nothing but craziness, where the names of these particular card
>games are concerned.
>
>To me, this kind of thing, though it's trivial, is really fascinating,
>weird, and a lot of fun.
>
>-Wilson

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