# Name for a form of serial wordplay? **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [February 14, 2009, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-for-a-form-of-serial-wordplay/485887 "2009-02-14T23:49:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![TWDuke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e495f1/32.png) [@TWDuke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TWDuke)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2009, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-for-a-form-of-serial-wordplay/485887/1 "2009-02-14T23:49:03Z")
\>While I’m in New Jersey, I’m going to visit my cousin in Brigantine. \>\>The village that only appears once each century? \>Your thinking of ‘Brigadoon’. \>\>Like the cookie? \>That would be Lorna Doone. \>\>[singing] “Don’t know why, there’s no sun up in the sky, stormy weather…” \>Lena Horne. \>\>I didn’t know she was your cousin! Is there a term for this kind of thing (besides “annoying”)? ---
**Author:** ![brujaja](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4af34b/32.png) [@brujaja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brujaja)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2009, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-for-a-form-of-serial-wordplay/485887/2 "2009-02-15T02:38:38Z")
“Malaprops”, we calls it here. To great effect! ---
**Author:** ![TWDuke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e495f1/32.png) [@TWDuke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TWDuke)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2009, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-for-a-form-of-serial-wordplay/485887/3 "2009-02-15T05:36:27Z")
Thanks! “Malaprop” doesn’t really capture the repeating aspect of it, but using it as a search term led me to the “malapropagations” threads. I love that word. If it’s not in common usage, it ought to be. ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2009, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-for-a-form-of-serial-wordplay/485887/4 "2009-02-15T16:27:38Z")
If you trace backwards on the generations at SDMB of Malapropagation games, you’ll find that in my earlier years we called it Cossack, based on the flow from cossack to cassock to hassock to hammock, ad infinitum. If there had been an “official” name for it, I never heard it. But, as you say, there really ought to be a name for it, and Malapropagation seems to fit so nicely. Best I can recall, that name was invented here! But it’s slipping my mind as to which clever Doper devised it. I’ll check after I post this. Too many fun games from childhood never seemed to have official names and it might make for a fun task to see how many names things like this went by in our early years. The problem becomes finding suitable descriptions of the games we played, so that others can have a clue as to what they may have called the same pastime. Take Hide and Seek or Tag as examples. How many different names must they have had? Kick the can Red Rover Spin the bottle Come I come Highway alphabet I spy ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2009, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-for-a-form-of-serial-wordplay/485887/5 "2009-02-15T16:38:07Z")
It was [kunilou](http://208.100.26.199/sdmb/showpost.php?p=9694218&postcount=234) who was the one to name it Malapropagation. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2009, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-for-a-form-of-serial-wordplay/485887/6 "2009-02-16T03:18:35Z")
FWIW I have always considered the term **Malapropagation** my most significant contribution to the SDMB. Also, probably my only significant contribution. ---
**Author:** ![It\_s\_Not\_Rocket\_Surgery](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/it_s_not_rocket_surgery/32/312_2.png) [@It\_s\_Not\_Rocket\_Surgery](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/It_s_Not_Rocket_Surgery)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2009, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-for-a-form-of-serial-wordplay/485887/7 "2009-02-16T15:44:07Z")
This game is close to Carnelli: > **[Carnelli](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnelli)** > > Carnelli is a parlor game of subsequent text continuation. It was created by Jan Carnell, a member of the Metropolitan Washington chapter of Mensa. This game has been popular at Mensa gatherings for years, and has turned up at science fiction conventions as well. It can be called a "title association" game, like "word association" only using titles, such as those of a book, play, movie, or song. > It is played by a group of people who arrange themselves in a circle, with the nonplaying judge (or ... ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2009, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-for-a-form-of-serial-wordplay/485887/8 "2009-02-16T16:10:35Z")
> [@It\_s\_Not\_Rocket\_Surgery](#): > > This game is close to Carnelli: > > [Carnelli - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnelli) That description reveals similarities to what we’ve played and called Malapropagations, but ours has been more contained and more of a one-word linking. No doubt the variants all spring from the same basic idea, but the OP’s notion of “serial wordplay” hints more of “word” than of “phrase” – at least to me. I vote No on Carnelli. ---
**Author:** ![Harmonious\_Discord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/74df32/32.png) [@Harmonious\_Discord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious_Discord)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2009, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-for-a-form-of-serial-wordplay/485887/9 "2009-02-16T17:01:46Z")
I think you mean the Alphabet’s cereal game, where you spell words floating in milk before you can eat it.🙂