Card-game names

[Alice Faber]

Barbara Need wrote:
>>  > 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).


Me three. Hearts and Crazy Eights.
>
> 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
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org


--
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Alice Faber                                    faber at haskins.yale.edu
Haskins Laboratories                           tel: (203) 865-6163 x258
New Haven, CT 06511 USA                        fax (203) 865-8963

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org