Rock-paper-scissors redux

Chris F Waigl chris at LASCRIBE.NET
Thu May 17 07:31:23 UTC 2007


Douglas G. Wilson wrote:

>  [Quote from NYT]
> > "... '[R]oshambo' [is] the French name for the game."
>
>  Well, I don't know .... I didn't find this to be self-evident in my
>  previous inquiry .... Maybe I'll take another look.
>

I've never heard it called "roshambo" in France.

Wikipedia has:

>  Pierre-feuille-ciseaux est un jeu d'enfants, appelé également
>  papier-caillou-ciseaux ou chifoumi en France, roche-papier-ciseaux au
>  Québec, pierre-papier-ciseaux en France et Belgique,
>  feuille-caillou-ciseaux en Suisse.

Maybe it's a local or regional name. I hadn't heard _chifoumi_ much
either. But both are indeed the kind of words you find for children's games.

I'd have said the German term is _knobeln_ (a verb), but apparently
that's the Southern term, and _schniekern_ may be preferred in the North.

Chris Waigl

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