Mastering The Charade

Added: 09/18/2007

Playing charades at a party can be great fun but it can also be a source of great frustration if you do not know the clues involved in charades. Some clues are obvious like pointing to your ring finger to indicate a ring or a jewel but others can be tricky. The key is to keep your mind completely open and fire off a lot of questions until you get the right answer or everyone just gives up.

Playing charades is a loud game even though half of your team cannot speak and it is the ultimate test to see if you can take a hint because that is what a charade is, a hint. Figuring out how to give a charade is nearly as difficult as trying to figure out what a charade means. Charades is funny because it is the one game that almost requires that the players on each team all have shared life experiences so that they know what each other is trying to say but because no one really has the same life experiences as other people that is what makes the game challenging. A charade is a clue you give to your teammate, or teammates, to try and get them to guess the word or phrase for that round but a lack of common life experiences can make any charade seem so obvious to the giver but confusing and nonsensical to the receiver. A charade can be a very difficult thing and that is why people always revert to common and universal hand gestures to try and get their teammate to guess the word or phrase in segments. Watching a game of charades can be great fun.

The key to charades is to be as familiar as possible with the universal hand signals used in the game throughout the world. For instance the outstretched arm with the upright hand at the end means stop. Thumbs up means okay and thumbs down is always something negative. If you tap the top of your left wrist with one finger from your right hand then the word to guess has one syllable, two fingers means two syllables, and so on. Rubbing your stomach in a circular motion means hunger and covering your eyes with your hand means blind or no sight. Making a motion like you are throwing a ball means throw and shrugging your shoulders means uncertainty. Of course the most obvious signals are the ones where you simply point to something to represent what you are trying to say. Pointing to your foot to indicate foot or pointing at a light to indicate light. These charades should all be relatively easy for anyone to guess and these basic charades make the foundation for the game.

Then there are the charades that can have multiple meanings and can cause a guessing frenzy. Pointing to your ear can mean ear, or hearing, or ear lobe, or anything like that just like pointing to your eye can mean eye, or sight, or vision. Jumping up and down can mean jump or it can mean anger. Smiling can mean happy or smile. It is these potential multiple meanings that make charades so fun but at the same time so loud and frustrating. It is also these charades that seem to bring out the least amount of intelligence available in your teammate. Pointing to your smile can mean many things but if it did not mean teeth the first time your teammate guessed it then it won’t mean teeth the second, third, or fourth time they guess it either. This is the part of charades that has broken up marriages and caused friends to stop talking. The repeated incorrect guess and from the perspective of the clue giver it can be one of the most frustrating things about the game of charades. If it didn’t mean hat the first time you guessed it then what makes you keep guessing hat over and over? Many a charade battle has been fought over this.

Then there are the charade clues that seem impossible. Take for example an orange. Seems simple enough but think about trying to get someone to guess orange if there is no oranges around to point at and no one is wearing the color orange. Doesn’t seem as easy now does it? Charades is just as much luck as it is any skill to guess clues.

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