You can only use 5 words for the next month. Which five?

Thread Games
1

Not sure this thread is even a game or if it belongs in IMHO, but I’m just interested to see what people will answer.

The scenario is: you have to choose 5 words; once you have chosen these words, they will be the only words you can speak or write for the period of a whole month. It is not important how this will happen, only that it will - it may be a wizard who will cast an unbreakable spell on you, or a TV game show that will reward you with untold wealth if you comply.

The Rules:

  • You have to choose 5 words (words not phonemes or some other dodge like that). You will be able to use these 5 words as frequently as you like, but you cannot choose different words once underway.
  • You can browse a dictionary and choose something outside of your current vocab if you wish
  • You may then only speak or write those words for a month
  • Dodges such as pointing at other words, using soundboards, playing games such as Pictionary or charades will not be permitted
  • Your friends and colleagues will be aware that this is happening to you and will probably try to accommodate the limitations as best they can, but they won’t help you break the rules.
  • Your capacity to think using your full vocabulary is not impaired.

What are your 5 words?
What is likely to go wrong soonest and worst for you?

2

Sit, Stay, Drop, NO!, Good.

I could get by with these five. People might look askance, but the dogs would behave.

3

At the moment, I think I’ll take “fuck you, you stupid bitch”. But I’ll admit that a bit short-sighted.

4

Yes, no, need, food, toilet.

5

What’s your choice for the fifth word?

6

The way I feel today, “Bite my shiny metal ass” would have me covered for the rest of the year!

-“BB”-

7
  • Alright
  • Thanks
  • Nah
  • I’m good
8

Beer, food, please, thank you.

9

Well, this went in a more jocular direction than I thought, but that’s OK.

I started out thinking I would go with: Do, Stop, This, Please, Help.
So I could have ‘this please’ to ask for things, or ‘do this please/stop this please’ etc.

But maybe it would be more useful to have: Do, Not, With, This, Now.
Do this, not this
Do this with this
Do not do this
etc

10

Sounds like “No, No, Nanette”.

I’d pick Yes, No, Love, What, and Help.

There is a verb in Latin (EI?), that my dictionary translated as “gather, do, drive, discuss…” But I suspect that it was highly dependent upon the surrounding context.

11

Are we allowed to nod or shake our heads? If so, I won’t choose yes or no.

12

Well…assuming we can use hand and head gestures, facial expressions, and inflection, I think I could get by with:

Yes
No
Me
You
Help

13

If I may choose the language, I go with Mark Twain and choose German, particularly the words Zug and Schlag. His words:

There are some exceedingly useful words in this language. SCHLAG, for example; and ZUG. There are three-quarters of a column of SCHLAGS in the dictonary, and a column and a half of ZUGS. The word SCHLAG means Blow, Stroke, Dash, Hit, Shock, Clap, Slap, Time, Bar, Coin, Stamp, Kind, Sort, Manner, Way, Apoplexy, Wood-cutting, Enclosure, Field, Forest-clearing. This is its simple and EXACT meaning–that is to say, its restricted, its fettered meaning; but there are ways by which you can set it free, so that it can soar away, as on the wings of the morning, and never be at rest. You can hang any word you please to its tail, and make it mean anything you want to. You can begin with SCHLAG-ADER, which means artery, and you can hang on the whole dictionary, word by word, clear through the alphabet to SCHLAG-WASSER, which means bilge-water–and including SCHLAG-MUTTER, which means mother-in-law.

Just the same with ZUG. Strictly speaking, ZUG means Pull, Tug, Draught, Procession, March, Progress, Flight, Direction, Expedition, Train, Caravan, Passage, Stroke, Touch, Line, Flourish, Trait of Character, Feature, Lineament, Chess-move, Organ-stop, Team, Whiff, Bias, Drawer, Propensity, Inhalation, Disposition: but that thing which it does NOT mean–when all its legitimate pennants have been hung on, has not been discovered yet.

One cannot overestimate the usefulness of SCHLAG and ZUG. Armed just with these two, and the word ALSO, what cannot the foreigner on German soil accomplish?

So I keep beer (Bier), food (Essen), please (bitte) and swap tank you for Schlag and Zug. Now I am covered.

14

I love you (for my husband)
Good girl (for the cat)

15

I think we’ve got to say no miming or sign language, which probably means no nodding or shaking of the head, unless you did choose Yes or No in your list (otherwise that will be the thin end of the wedge - shrug for ‘maybe’; puppy eyes for ‘please’ and so on).

16

Ok, so it’s like we can only use a steven hawking talk box that only has 5 buttons.

Yes
No
Eat
Shit
Die

17

I think you’re OK to use gestures that are congruent with the words you have chosen (so one of my words is ‘this’ - I can point at things)

18

I would choose five of George Carlin’s “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television.”

19

Fuck you
Mother pus bucket