the incongruous simile
I’m sure you’ve heard somebody use similes that seem really incongruous or just plain wrong. We heard one used by a newsreader the other day (which I struggle to remember) which was nonsense – but my mind, rather than letting it drop, tried to start justifying the association. I mangled the subject and it’s rotten simile around until I could somehow align the two – with most amusing results!
After this mental effort, it occurred to me – this could actually be a fun game!
the game
Primarily to be played by a group of co-located people the goal is nothing other than fumbling about with words and meanings for fun within the framework of the use of simile. The general goal is: given a seemingly unrelated thing A and simile B, find a way to make the simile fit. For example:
A: Writing this blog
is like
B: Massaging a racoon
So the next bit is to come up with things to make this simile somehow appropriate as though the phrase were taken in one. The more ridiculous the better I say. Writing this blog is like massaging a racoon – best done in a dustbin and once you’ve had your vaccinations.
Give it some structure
Probably best played as a group round a bunch of booze, there are probably a load of ways to add some structure. My first thought and the one that seems most fun is the general free-for-all route:
- Everybody writes a single object/action/situation/whatever on a slip of paper and puts it into the Thing hat.
- Everybody writes a single simile (without the “is/are like” bit – that’s a given) on a slip of paper and puts it into the Simile hat.
- Pick one random slip out of each hat
- Maybe use a flipchart/whiteboard/big piece of paper to write out the resulting phrase Thing “is/are like” Simile
- Have at it – just come up with weirdness!
- Pop the slips back in their hats (or for extra oddness – pop them back in opposite hats)
To turn it into a more competitive game you could do things like
- Each person takes it in turn to draw a Thing and Simile and come up with something good – or at all.
- Could be scored by the rest
- Could be timed to have to come up with something
- Have two teams – one that comes up with Things the other the Similes
- Each team draws and has to come up with something
- Making the Things and Similes as weird as possible to flummox the other team
- Either of these could be based on coming up with something truly congruent or “most surreal” or plain “funniest”
It’s possible to see how this could be made into a board game. Could also a web-game with timed rounds; voting etc… but that seems to miss the point for me. I think the fun comes from people sparking off each other and escalations of weirdness. Rather like a bag of broken sausages – um – disjoint and unfit for polite consumption 🙂