I’m not sure why people (including the OP, who has experience with the Deaf) is saying Deaf people would tend to be really good at Charades.
The rules in Charades say you are not allowed to say anything. When a Deaf person uses Sign Language, they are saying something. Hence a Deaf person playing Charades is not allowed to use Sign Language. And if they are not allowed to use Sign Language, I fail to see how they’re at any less of a disadvantage than I am when I play.
-FrL-
To be honest, I had no idea “Deaf and Dumb” is now considered offensive until I read this thread.
The game “Apples to Apples” original version has a card with the word “Pentagon” on it and a joke about how easy it would be to target such a singularly shaped building for a terrorist attack. When we’re playing, we just remove the card. It’s in bad taste.
The games manufacturer removed that card for future releases of that deck. (Now it’s kind of a sad collector’s item.) Of course, they didn’t have to be told it’s in bad taste. But if your hearing-impaired family members and friends are as offended as you are, perhaps they would like to send e-mails as well. They are the parties truly being insulted here, no?
Well, it’s a joke. The joke is, the deaf person won’t be saying anything…they’ll be signing it…you know, they’ll be able to use signs, and it’s not cheating because they’re not using spoken words.
I’m not sure why you thought I didn’t understand the joke. I explained why the joke’s not really funny because it presumes incorrectly (as you just did) that the rule in Charades is just not to say anything “out loud.”
-FrL-
Even more broadly, “verbal” encompasses anything having to do with words. So for a person to be truly nonverbal, he or she would have to meet each of the following criteria:
“Nonoral” would, more accurately than does “nonverbal”, describe the people sometimes referred to as “deaf mutes”. However, the word will never catch on because of the “so you’re saying they can’t perform cunnilingus or fellatio?” jokes that would inevitably follow.
If you want some kind of concrete action, alert the “deaf and dumb” community.
Oops.
I meant, alert the appropriate interest and advocacy groups groups for the population and let them have at the company.
The rule in Charades is not to talk. Deaf people can communicate without talking. They’re using sign language…they aren’t saying anything.
The intention is Charades is not just that people not “say anything out loud” but rather that people not communicate linguistically. Perhaps this doesn’t occur to most people because most people don’t interact with deaf people that often. But what kind of stupid game would allow one language but disallow another language? Obviously, unless we intend Charades to be an incredibly stupidly designed game, we will realize that this can’t be the intention behind the rule “not to speak.”
And to say that deaf people “aren’t saying anything” when they speak sign language frankly bespeaks a ridiculous ignorance about what sign language is and how it works. Just google it if you want to become uningoranticized.
-FrL-
It seems more likely that the “creators” of the game never gave the deaf community as much as a single thought, and never considered whether or or not sign language
is “talking”.
Which is why it’s a joke and not meant as a serious analysis of deaf people playing charades.
I know what sign language is and how it works. I’m not claiming they aren’t communicating. But it’s non-verbal communication…they aren’t “saying” anything…they’re signing things.
An interesting question.
I don’t know about British Sign Language, but in ASL you do more than just “wave your hands” when you communicate. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of subtle non-manual language markers in ASL - facial expressions, body posture, body orientation, tempo, etc. - that are commonly used by speaking people when they play charades. In ASL, you can change a statement to a question by the shape of your eyes or the tilt of your head. You can imply shifts in time by leaning forward or back. You can specify body parts by merely pointing to them. You can hold up four fingers to say “4”. And so on.
Do you forbid a deaf person from using these parts of ASL during play, because it allows them to communicate linguistically?
A large part of conveying meaning or emotion in Sign Language is basic charade type movements and facial expression. While the language is formed with the hands the meaning is expressed with the face or body postion. If you were to say I want to go out and learn Sign some of the first lessons would most likely be playing charades.
The phrase “Deaf and Dumb” at the very least least is out of date, I agree that it’s offensive and should be taken out of the game. If they had a card telling some one to act out the “retard” from Rainman I’m certain they would have had a lot more calls. Both phrases are equally offensive in my book.
BTW I am hearing, fluent in ASL.
Spelling out big letters with your hands/arms or drawing them with your finger on the table would be outside of the rules in any Charades games I’ve played. It’s contrary to the spirit of the game, and functionally it’s no different then using ASL. This is a non-issue, IMO.