# What gives? (Alphabet Game) **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [April 19, 2008, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gives-alphabet-game/446017 "2008-04-19T16:39:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2008, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gives-alphabet-game/446017/1 "2008-04-19T16:39:01Z")
A boy can do everything from getting his interesting job kept low-key, making no obvious protest, quietly reading stories to us very weary xenophobes, yet zombify. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2008, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gives-alphabet-game/446017/2 "2008-04-19T17:09:29Z")
Probably more of a Game Room thread, non? I’ll be impressed if you can do it in Cyrillic alphabet. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![brujaja](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4af34b/32.png) [@brujaja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brujaja)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2008, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gives-alphabet-game/446017/3 "2008-04-19T17:21:15Z")
I like the boy-can-do-everything part. Reminded me of those reading primers. I wonder what Dick and Jane are doing in 21st century reading primers? “See Dick’s gun. Run, Jane, run!” ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2008, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gives-alphabet-game/446017/4 "2008-04-19T17:25:49Z")
[QUOTE=brujaja] I like the boy-can-do-everything part. Reminded me of those reading primers. I wonder what Dick and Jane are doing in 21st century reading primers? “See Dick’s gun. Run, Jane, run!” [/QUOTE] Selling dope most likely. Or running a “stable of lace” on the downlow. There has to be a Dick/Jane/Spot rap ripoff. ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2008, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gives-alphabet-game/446017/5 "2008-04-19T17:29:06Z")
[QUOTE=Stranger On A Train] Probably more of a Game Room thread, non? I’ll be impressed if you can do it in Cyrillic alphabet. Stranger [/QUOTE] Does Campbell’s make Cyrillic alphabet soup? And I figured it would have more appeal in the not-obviously-a-game context. If the challenge is met and it actually morphs into a game, it’ll get moved I wager. How far can you get in writing a sentence (or a story) with no e’s? ---
**Author:** ![brujaja](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4af34b/32.png) [@brujaja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brujaja)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2008, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gives-alphabet-game/446017/6 "2008-04-19T18:31:29Z")
[QUOTE=Zeldar] If the challenge is met and it actually morphs into a game, it’ll get moved I wager. [/QUOTE] En Garde! “And between cites during every freaky gambit, her inner joy keyed like Matrioshka Numen, our protagonist quickened realizing several things ultimately verified with xanthous yellow zeitgeists.” ---
**Author:** ![brujaja](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4af34b/32.png) [@brujaja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brujaja)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2008, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gives-alphabet-game/446017/7 "2008-04-19T18:35:44Z")
And the second challenge: “All you could do was go on, against your own copious naysaying, for what it was worth.” (See you in the Game Room.) ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2008, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gives-alphabet-game/446017/8 "2008-04-19T19:52:11Z")
[QUOTE=brujaja] En Garde! “And between cites during every freaky gambit, her inner joy keyed like Matrioshka Numen, our protagonist quickened realizing several things ultimately verified with xanthous yellow zeitgeists.” [/QUOTE] Brava! A better result. As is your next post with the no-e’s. Maybe you can devise an extension of the basic notion with another twist? ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Rosewater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/898d66/32.png) [@Mr.Rosewater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Rosewater)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2008, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gives-alphabet-game/446017/9 "2008-04-19T19:59:07Z")
[QUOTE=brujaja] I like the boy-can-do-everything part. Reminded me of those reading primers. I wonder what Dick and Jane are doing in 21st century reading primers? “See Dick’s gun. Run, Jane, run!” [/QUOTE] According to Aerosmith, it’s Janie that has the gun. ---
**Author:** ![brujaja](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4af34b/32.png) [@brujaja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brujaja)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2008, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gives-alphabet-game/446017/10 "2008-04-20T01:23:59Z")
“Better run, Dick! Spot can’t save you now!!” ---
**Author:** ![brujaja](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4af34b/32.png) [@brujaja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brujaja)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2008, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gives-alphabet-game/446017/11 "2008-04-20T01:45:08Z")
[QUOTE=Zeldar] Brava! A better result. As is your next post with the no-e’s. Maybe you can devise an extension of the basic notion with another twist? [/QUOTE] "And so, bringing nothing to our table but angst and your past, you start your first day as an astronaut in Ms. Brujaja’s galaxy. A calling many would shun, for that woman is too damn wordy. A fucking know-it-all. And nymphomaniacal too! But, oh, what stars and clouds and anomalous data you find in that quadrant! A quantity sufficing to stay busy long and long… Say again what was wrong with Brujaja? For I do not know, I now find. You and I talk for all of that night, anticipating tomorrow. At last, morning calls and duty awaits. Our craft stands in its hangar; proud, shiny, still. Until ignition. Countdown!! Geronimo!! --Off to infinity, aloft in vacuum, no friction, just dark. And stars." ---
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2008, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gives-alphabet-game/446017/12 "2008-04-20T02:01:25Z")
This thread makes me wonder what it would be like if the alphabet was ordered differently. ---
**Author:** ![FilmGeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@FilmGeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FilmGeek)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2008, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gives-alphabet-game/446017/13 "2008-04-20T02:04:59Z")
[QUOTE=brujaja] "And so, bringing nothing to our table but angst and your past, [/QUOTE] If you were avoiding E again, you failed. If not, disregard my post. ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2008, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gives-alphabet-game/446017/14 "2008-04-20T02:16:37Z")
[QUOTE=eleanorigby] This thread makes me wonder what it would be like if the alphabet was ordered differently. [/QUOTE] Wasn’t it Steven Wright who had the bit: > [@](#): > > Why is the alphabet in that order? Is it because of that song? ---
**Author:** ![brujaja](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4af34b/32.png) [@brujaja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brujaja)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2008, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gives-alphabet-game/446017/15 "2008-04-20T02:26:17Z")
[QUOTE=FilmGeek] If you were avoiding E again, you failed. If not, disregard my post. [/QUOTE] EEEEEEEEEK!!! You don’t know how many times I re-read it! I had “Enough” instead of “a quantity sufficing” for almost the whole time too. It’s like, E’s are so common, one’s eye doesn’t even see them. **eleanorigby** , if the alphabet were ordered differently, this game thread would look like…ordinary sentences. ---
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2008, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gives-alphabet-game/446017/16 "2008-04-20T02:32:02Z")
[QUOTE=Zeldar] Wasn’t it Steven Wright who had the bit: [/QUOTE] 😃 I like the way he thinks. Ok there, **brujaja** , I stand enlightened. (silly person, I knew that, I was making a joke) 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2008, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gives-alphabet-game/446017/17 "2008-04-20T02:34:06Z")
[QUOTE=brujaja] EEEEEEEEEK!!! You don’t know how many times I re-read it! I had “Enough” instead of “a quantity sufficing” for almost the whole time too. It’s like, E’s are so common, one’s eye doesn’t even see them. **eleanorigby** , if the alphabet were ordered differently, this game thread would look like…ordinary sentences. [/QUOTE] I wasn’t going to say anything until I was sure the E thing was what was up. But notice Geronimo, too. It’s so much like the thing I’ve heard attributed to all sorts of people, but Chekhov is who I always use since it sounds so Russian, but anyway he and his brother had this two-person club where to be a member you had to stand in the corner for half an hour and not think of a white bear. (There’s a current thread somewhere with a similar challenge). It’s just not worth the work, is it? Here’s a challenge: how many words can you write without using the word “the” and still have what you’re writing mean something intelligible? ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Purl\_McKnittington](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9a140/32.png) [@Miss\_Purl\_McKnittington](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Purl_McKnittington)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2008, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gives-alphabet-game/446017/18 "2008-04-20T03:10:53Z")
A quick and nimble man may find that his footwork is without peer. His toes may dance, his heels may frolic, but it is always his ankle which brings him down. Delicate tendons, arching from heel to a distance loftily above his feet’s concerns, will always summon disaster. From Ancient Greece to today’s athletic stars, it does not always take an arrow to destroy a man’s dreams. Paris’s arrow brought Achilles down surely; for a less extraordinary person, a porch step suffices. How many times have I – a mere woman, certainly, but most definitely any man’s peer in issues of clumsiness – walked sedately down a primrose path, in love with every atom of creation, when suddenly my world shifts, topsy-turvy from start to finish, and I am in a trough of bruised and scraped despair? O, many! Beyond counting are my careless tumbles. It is always my ankle, rolling suddenly to left or right, that sends me tumbling headlong into misery. Unladylike in the extreme, I envy men their rough camaraderie. Embarrassment is laughed away with few blows from his friends, and he is free to walk once again, unimpeded by those limitations placed upon fairer members of society. It may be hubris to compare myself to such as Achilles, but surely there is room for mere mortals to fumble where demigods also fail. (Note: I could go on a lot longer, but I will spare you.) ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2008, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gives-alphabet-game/446017/19 "2008-04-20T03:27:30Z")
[QUOTE=Miss Purl McKnittington] A quick and nimble man may find that his footwork is without peer. His toes may dance, his heels may frolic, but it is always his ankle which brings him down. Delicate tendons, arching from heel to a distance loftily above his feet’s concerns, will always summon disaster. From Ancient Greece to today’s athletic stars, it does not always take an arrow to destroy a man’s dreams. Paris’s arrow brought Achilles down surely; for a less extraordinary person, a porch step suffices. How many times have I – a mere woman, certainly, but most definitely any man’s peer in issues of clumsiness – walked sedately down a primrose path, in love with every atom of creation, when suddenly my world shifts, topsy-turvy from start to finish, and I am in a trough of bruised and scraped despair? O, many! Beyond counting are my careless tumbles. It is always my ankle, rolling suddenly to left or right, that sends me tumbling headlong into misery. Unladylike in the extreme, I envy men their rough camaraderie. Embarrassment is laughed away with few blows from his friends, and he is free to walk once again, unimpeded by those limitations placed upon fairer members of society. It may be hubris to compare myself to such as Achilles, but surely there is room for mere mortals to fumble where demigods also fail. (Note: I could go on a lot longer, but I will spare you.) [/QUOTE] Uh-oh: > [@](#): > > Unladylike in the extreme ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Purl\_McKnittington](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9a140/32.png) [@Miss\_Purl\_McKnittington](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Purl_McKnittington)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2008, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gives-alphabet-game/446017/20 "2008-04-20T03:35:28Z")
The hell you say! Ah, nuts. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-gives-alphabet-game/446017.md?page=2)