Tag

The group begins playing tag by saying “not it”. Who ever is the last to say this is the person who must chase after the rest. The one who is “it” must run around and try to tag someone. Once a person is tagged then he/she must run and try to tag someone else. The game goes on and on until the players decide to stop it.

According to Ricardo, tag is usually played in school during recess. He says that he plays the game because it is lots of fun. He learned how to play from his cousins who played the game too.

I believe that the game is popular among school children because the rules are easy to understand and simple to follow. It is a game which children of all ages can play, and is a way for kids to run around without getting in trouble.

Reference:

Newell, William Wells. Games and Songs of American Children. Harper & Brothers, 1903. p.158-9

“Ok so the way the game goes is first one person starts out by saying that they want to play snaps.  Then somebody chooses a category, we usually choose baseball players.  After that, the person thinks of the name of a player and begins the game.  The object of the game is for the person who has thought of the player to try to get the other people listening to guess the same player that teller is thinking of.  So the person who thinks of the player, ‘the teller’, begins by saying either ‘snaps is the name of the game’ or ‘snaps is not the name of the game’.  When snaps is the name of the game, that means the teller will spell out the person’s first name, and when snaps is not the name of the game that means the teller will spell out the person’s last name.  To spell out a name, the teller says a series of sentences in which the first letter of the first word of the first sentence gives the first letter of the person’s name, the first letter of the first word of the second sentence gives the second letter of a person’s name, and so on.  However, the catch is this is only used for consonants.  For vowels, the teller snaps his fingers: once for A, twice for E, three times for I, four times for O, and five times for U.  Usually this means that there is a scramble of sentences and snaps that form either the full first name or last name of the person that the teller is trying to get the audience to guess.  So as an example I will give you Roger Clemens when snaps is the name of the game and when it is not.  ‘Snaps is the name of the game.  Read books.  (Snap 4 times).  Go get it.  (Snap 2 times).  Remember everything I said.’  That would spell out R-O-G-E-R.  Hopefully the

person could guess that it was Roger Clemens given the category.   Here is how I would do Roger Clemens when snaps is not the name of the game.  ‘Snaps is not the name of the game.  Close your eyes.  Listen carefully.  (Snap 2 times).  Make sure you can hear me.  (Snap 2 times).  Notice my hands.  Stick with it.’  That would spell out C-L-E-M-E-N-S.  The teller must think of a name in the category that people would probably guess and use his best judgment when telling the name.”

I collected this game from one of my old assistant baseball coaches who I remember played snaps with us during bus rides and practice.  Usually there are some people who know how to play and some people who don’t know how to play.  It will often take listeners who have never played before at least a half hour to an hour before they can figure out the gist of the game.  Also, it is considered taboo to speak the rules, because that would be giving away the secret rules that everyone has had to figure out in the past.  Anybody can initiate a snaps game and usually after the teller has gone and a person has guessed it, someone else who knows how to play will start it up again and say a different person.

According to Mike, he learned this while playing minor league baseball for a Yankee’s farm team while in Canada.  What Mike has found is that snaps is popular across the baseball community and that he has found it being played in other groups as well.  He told me that everyone knew how to play on the team and that when rookies came to play on the team they would always be the target of the game.  Like many games, this folk game typically involved some people who know how to play, while others have to try to figure it out.  I believe the reason that snaps is such an addicting game is because when someone figures out how to play, all they want to do is try and stump the next person who wants to try and figure it out.

“The name of this game is called Ghost.  You need more than two people, but preferably less than seven or eight.  To begin someone starts by saying a letter.  Then usually it goes clockwise to the next person who says a letter and the next person who says another letter and so forth.  The whole time each letter everyone says is basically spelling out a word.   The object of the game is to get someone else to say a letter that will spell a word without actually spelling a word yourself.  Also it is only considered to be a word if there are at least three letters that have already been said.  If someone says a letter that ends up spelling a word they get a G.  Each time a person ends another word they get another letter to spell out GHOST.  Once a person has ended a word five times they will have G-H-O-S-T and are officially out of the game.  The game continues until there is only one person left as champion.”

Chris told me that he learned this game about 5 years ago at a wrestling camp in Rhode Island.  He said between practicing they would always play this game to keep busy.  He said most often it was just the wrestlers that played and not usually the coaches unless they were young enough to want to join in.  Apparently, after Chris learned the game he brought it back to Connecticut and shared it with his other teammates at his school and got everyone to play on his high school team as well.  Chris said that not only is it just played between players of sports teams, but that he also plays on road trips in cars and at home with friends to pass the time.

I believe that this game is popular because it is something that everybody can do, as long as the players can all speak the same language.  There are many other games in which a person can “accumulate letters” that eventually lead to their exile from a game.  Another example would be Horse in basketball in which people trade basketball shots and if a person misses a shot that the other one makes, they get a letter.  I think games such as these unleash a person’s inner competitive drive to win and ultimately are the reason that people want to play them again and again.