# Why is the game "Are you there, Moriarty?" called that? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 30, 2012, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-game-are-you-there-moriarty-called-that/633181 "2012-08-30T19:29:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Duke\_of\_York](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f6c823/32.png) [@Duke\_of\_York](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke_of_York)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2013, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-game-are-you-there-moriarty-called-that/633181/21 "2013-12-06T13:17:52Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > As for the game, I don’t really get it. If you are holding hands with the other person, how can it be at all difficult to locate and hit them, even blindfolded. Surely it would all be over in a second. I should imagine that if you are playing the game in the first place you would not be well endowed in the grey matter area. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2013, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-game-are-you-there-moriarty-called-that/633181/22 "2013-12-06T13:36:23Z")
> [@](#): > > Hmm, I always assumed Moriarty in the Goons was himself derived from Conan Doyle’s Moriarty, who Milligan must have been aware of. He is a stupid, incompetent criminal, and a sidekick rather than a leader, as opposed to a criminal mastermind, but presumably that is all part of the joke. > > On the other hand, Moriarty is a fairly common Irish surname, and Milligan was of Irish extraction (though he didn’t grow up in Ireland), so I don’t know. > > On a side note, back in the 1960s I visited the small, remote town of Dingle in the far west of Ireland. I noticed that many (almost all, as I recall it) of the shops there were called Moriarty’s. My theory is that the evil professor also survived the epic struggle at the Reichenbach Falls, but, knowing Holmes was now onto him, went to ground in the west of Ireland, and founded a dynasty of shopkeepers. I noticed the same thing when we visited Ireland several years ago, and had my picture taken in front of one of the Moriarty shops. This made me think about George Bernard Shaw’s famed dislike of the sleuth. It always seemed odd because Holmes seems like the sort of character Shaw would love. Indeed, the similarities between Holmes/Watson and Prof. Higgins/Col. Pickering are so many and close that it’s hard to think Shaw didn’t base his _Pygmalion_ characters on Doyle’s. (And I couldn’t get Shaw out of my head – when we had been in Dublin a few days earlier we’d visited Shaw’s house). So why did Shaw dislike Holmes, passing him off as a mere drug addict? I recalled all those Moriartys in Derry. And Moriarty’s right-hand man was Col. Sebastian Moran – another Irish name. And Shaw himself was Irish. Maybe that said it all. (Shaw’s Professor Higgins, the Holmes substitute, is shown to be prejudiced and insensitive about it, but in his case it’s judging the Welsh – also identified by their surnames – as thieves and criminals). ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2013, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-game-are-you-there-moriarty-called-that/633181/23 "2013-12-06T14:01:01Z")
**Teemings** piece I wrote about Moriarty (and Shaw): [http://www.teemings.net/series\_1/issue13/calmeacham.html](http://www.teemings.net/series_1/issue13/calmeacham.html) ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2013, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-game-are-you-there-moriarty-called-that/633181/24 "2013-12-06T14:29:39Z")
A rousing game on [youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRpzG_Tm-IU) Actually shows something resembling tactics and cohesive game play. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2013, 7:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-game-are-you-there-moriarty-called-that/633181/25 "2013-12-08T07:27:16Z")
> [@babsbabs](#): > > Rudyard Kipling (who was a raging racist I reject that characterisation. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-the-game-are-you-there-moriarty-called-that/633181.md?page=1)