Charades or charade is a word guessing game. In the form most commonly played today, it is an acting game in which one player acts out a word or phrase, often by pantomiming similar-sounding words, and the other players guess the word or phrase. The idea is to use physical rather than verbal language to convey the meaning to another party. It is also sometimes called as Activity, after the board game. In India it is also commonly known as dumb charades. A word game or word puzzle can be of several different types: // [edit] Letter arrangement games The goal is to form words out of given letters. ... A guessing game is a game in which the object is to guess some kind of information, such as a word, a phrase, a title, or the location of an object. ... A word is a unit of language that carries meaning and consists of one or more morphemes which are linked more or less tightly together, and has a phonetical value. ... Look up phrase in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... The Christmas Pantomime colour lithograph bookcover, 1890 Pantomime (informally, panto) refers to a theatrical genre, traditionally found in Great Britain, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand and Ireland, which is usually performed around the Christmas and New Year holiday season. ...

Brief background

Though less commonly heard with this meaning nowadays, the word charade was originally also used to indicate a riddle either in verse or prose, of which the listener must guess the meaning, often given syllable by syllable—see riddle. In France the word charade still refers to this kind of linguistic riddle. A syllable (Ancient Greek: ) is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. ... A riddle is a statement or question having a double or veiled meaning, put forth as a puzzle to be solved. ...

Charades has been made into a television show in the form of the Canadian Acting Crazy, the British Give Us a Clue, and much more recently the 2005 debut of Celebrity Charades on the AMC television network in America. Give Us a Clue has also been parodied in Sound Charades, played on the BBC Radio 4 panel game show I'm Sorry, I Haven't a Clue. The ISIHAC version, permits players to speak and so describe a scene (often a pun of the title word), which the opposing team has to guess. Acting Crazy was an early-to-mid-1990s television game show. ... Give Us A Clue is a televised version of charades hosted at different times by Michael Aspel and Michael Parkinson, with two teams: one captained by Lionel Blair and the other by Una Stubbs. ... 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Celebrity Charades is a television program which debuted on June 20 2005 on the AMC television network in America. ... AMC was originally a basic cable channel that aired classic movies, largely pre-1950s, in a commercial-free, generally unedited format. ... Motto: (Out Of Many, One) (traditional) In God We Trust (1956 to date) Anthem: The Star-Spangled Banner Capital Washington D.C. Largest city New York City None at federal level (English de facto) Government Federal constitutional republic  - President George Walker Bush (R)  - Vice President Dick Cheney (R) Independence from... Sound Charades is a variant of charades played on BBC Radio 4s antidote to panel games Im Sorry I Havent A Clue. ... BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station which broadcasts a wide variety of chiefly spoken-word programmes including news, drama, comedy, science and history. ... Im Sorry I Havent A Clue, often abbreviated to the initialism ISIHAC, is a radio comedy programme which has been broadcast several times annually on BBC Radio 4 from April 11, 1972 to the present. ...

Rules of the acted charade

The rules of the acted charades used vary widely and informally, but these rules, in some form, are common to most players:

• The players divide into two teams.
• Each player writes a phrase on a slip of paper to create the phrases to be guessed by the other team provided with a randomly selected word or phrase in secret (usually on a slip of paper drawn from a container), and then has a limited period of time in which to convey this to his teammates.
• No sounds or lip movements are allowed. In some circles, even clapping is prohibited, while in others, the player may make any sound other than speaking or whistling a recognisable tune.
• The actor cannot point out at any of the objects present in the scene, if by doing so he is helping his teammates.
• Usually, any gesture is allowed other than blatantly spelling out the word, but some play that indicating anything about the form of the phrase is prohibited, even the number of words, so that only the ' may be acted out.
• The teams alternate until each team member has had an opportunity to pantomime.

Since so many rules can vary, clarifying all the rules before the game begins can avoid problems later. A Team is a small group with complementary skills who hold themselves mutually accountable for common purpose, goals, and approach. ... Look up time in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

Standard signals

A number of standard signals have come into common usage in charades, though they are not required. To indicate the general category of a word or phrase:

Person

Stand with hands on hips.

Book title

Unfold your hands as if they were a book.

Movie title

Pretend to crank an old-fashioned movie camera.

Play title

Pretend to pull the rope that opens a theater curtain.

Song title

Pretend to sing.

TV show

Draw a rectangle to outline the TV screen.

Quote or phrase

Make quotation marks in the air with your fingers.

Location

Make a circle with one hand, then point to it, as if pointing to a dot on a map.

Event

Point to your wrist as if you were wearing a watch.

"Think!"

Make the "crazy" signal, i.e. point to your head and wave your finger in a circle.

Computer Game

Using both hands out stretched move thumbs like using a gamepad.

Website

Hold your hand out, palm down, horizontal to the ground (as if holding a computer mouse). Make a sweeping motion side to side, as if moving a coconut half on table ("navigating"), then stop and tap index finger (as if "clicking").

To indicate other characteristics of the word or phrase: A chained book in the Bodleian Library at Oxford University A Chinese bamboo book, in a collection at the University of California, Riverside. ... Film is a term that encompasses individual motion pictures, the field of film as an art form, and the motion picture industry. ... The Arricam ST, a popular 35 mm film camera currently used on major productions. ... Romeo and Juliet by Ford Madox Brown A play, written by a playwright, or dramatist, is a form of literature, almost always consisting of dialog between characters, and intended for performance rather than reading. ... A song is a relatively short musical composition. ... This does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... A map is a simplified depiction of a space which highlights relations between components (objects, regions) of that space. ...

Number of words in the phrase

Hold up the number of fingers.

Which word you're working on

Hold up the number of fingers again.

Number of syllables in the word

Lay the number of fingers on your arm.

Which syllable you're working on

Lay the number of fingers on your arm again.

Length of word

Make a "little" or "big" sign as if you were measuring a fish.

"The entire concept"

Sweep your arms through the air.

"On the nose" (i.e., someone has made a correct guess)

Point at your nose with one hand, while pointing at the person with your other hand.

"Sounds like"

Cup one hand behind an ear, or pull on your earlobe.

"Longer version of"

Pretend to stretch a piece of elastic.

"Shorter version of"

Do a "karate chop" with your hand.

"Plural"

Link your little fingers.

"Proper Name"

Tap the top of your head with an open palm.

"Past tense"

Wave your hand over your shoulder toward your back.

A letter of the alphabet

Move your hand in a chopping motion toward your arm (near the top of your forearm if the letter is near the beginning of the alphabet, and near the bottom of your arm if the letter is near the end of the alphabet).

A color

Point to your tongue, then point to an object of the color you're trying to convey. If no objects are available, then pantomime an object that typically possesses the color in question.

"Close, keep guessing!"

Frantically wave your hands about to keep the guesses coming, or pretend to fan yourself, as if to say "getting hotter".

"Not even close, I'll start over"

Wave hand in a wide sweep, as if to say "go away!" Alternatively, pretend to shiver, as if to say "getting colder".

The hand is moved as if flushing a toilet, meaning forget whatever has been done till now and to start afresh.

"A synonym" or "A word or phrase that means the same thing"

Clasp your hands together and then, rotating your clasped hands from the wrists, simulate multiple figure 8's.

"The opposite" or "the antonym of what you are saying"

Form each hand into a hitchhiker's thumb signal, then with the backs of the hands facing away from you, cross your forearms and make the thumbs travel in opposing directions, thus "opposite".

"Stop, work on something else"

Hold both arms out in front of you, palms of your hands waving, facing your teammates, while simultaneously shaking your head, eyes closed.

A syllable (Ancient Greek: ) is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. ... On the ear of humans and many other animals, the earlobe (lobulus auriculæ, sometimes simply lobe or lobule) is the soft lower part of the external ear or pinna. ... Karate ) ( ) or karate-dō ) is a martial art that developed from a synthesis of indigenous Ryukyuan fighting methods and chinese kempo [1] . Karate originally meant Tang hand, i. ... A Specimen of typeset fonts and languages, by William Caslon, letter founder; from the 1728 Cyclopaedia. ... // The Human Forearm The forearm is the structure on the upper limb, between the elbow and the wrist. ... Color is an important part of the visual arts. ... Look up flush in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Hitchhiking (also called lifting or thumbing) is a form of transport, in which the traveller tries to get a lift (ride) from another traveller, usually a car or truck driver. ...

Signals for commons words

Some conventions have also evolved about very common words:

• "A" is signed by steepling index fingers together. Following it with either the stretching rubber band sign or "close, keep guessing!" sign, will often elicit "an" and "and". (sometimes "and" is signed by pointing at ones palm with the index finger)
• "I" is signed by pointing at one's eye, or one's chest.
• "the" is signed by making a "T" sign with the index fingers. The "close, keep guessing!" sign will then usually elicit a rigmarole of other very common words starting with "th".
• "That" is signed by the same aforementioned "T" with the index fingers and immediately followed by one flattened hand tapping the head for a "hat", thus the combination becoming "that".
• Other common small words are signed by holding the index finger and thumb close together, but not touching.

Note that these signals are standardized by general consensus only, and may vary somewhat from place to place. Five rubber bands A rubber band (in some regions known as a binder, elastic band, lacker band or gumband in Pittsburgh, as well as some parts of Australia) is a short length of rubber and latex formed in the shape of a loop. ... The Index finger The index finger, pointer finger or forefinger is the second digit of a human hand, located between the thumb and the middle finger. ...

External links

• Charade Ideas Generator

See also

• Stump the Stars
• gesture
• cryptic crossword, for a type of clue based on this game