I was telling a friend recently about the young man, eyes on his iPhone, unaware of all else around him, who came within one horn toot on my part of walking smack-dab into the side of my moving car. This led to some memory gathering about other just-as-silly fads we remembered.
There was the "Knock-Knock" fad: "Knock knock", "Who's there?" "Greta." "Greta who?" (punchline) "Greta life, you lazy bum!"
And there was the "Handies" fad, where, for instance, you stuck a finger in your mouth, revolved your other hand around your ear clockwise, and everyone was supposed to guess you were pantomiming a pencil sharpener.
And there was my favorite, called "Stink Pink".
These were great ice breakers at parties. You know, where everyone is sitting around making friendly noises at each other while they sniff breaths to see who has the booze at the party! With these, strangers at a party didn't need a common bond to converse on. The games established one. Conversation wasn't needed. While sipping, or chewing, everyone hatched clever Stink Pinks to share. Even if someone came up empty, he or she would usually have imbibed enough drink so the ice would be broken anyhow. So it seemed a sure-fire method for mixing up the participants.
Let me explain how the game worked. The first step was to think up a set of two rhyming words - an adjective and a noun or pronoun - like "Zestful chestfull". This you kept to yourself, since it was to be the ultimate answer the others were to guess from the clues you furnish them.
To the gathering you give hints in two parts: (1) a (preferably funny) dictionary-type deftnition of your rhyming words (which must, incidentally, be the same length) and (2) the number of syllables in your chosen words. Stink Pink = one syllable, stinky pinky = two, stinkity pinkity = three, and for every added syllable add in another "it". Example: "Actress with a more-so torso, stinky pinky". The answer:"zestfull chestfull".
If anyone comes up with a word set of more than four syllables they should be classed as genius, above the hoi-polio, and should be down in the village drinking Scotch with the intellectuals, not playing silly word games at our party, where no one would guess the damn thing anyhow. Two examples did surface at our games - ineffectual intellectual and comprehensible reprehensible - and, as expected, they stumped our partiers completely. The perpetrator, it turned out, had browsed the dictionary for a week to come up with them.
In the eventuality this game intrigues anyone enough to try, here is a set of sample Stink Pinks we brain-stormed for you.
What is a burlesk stripper on the bumps-and-brinds circuit called, stink-pink?
What is a municipal jester, stink-pink?
What would a happy father be, stink-pink and stinky-pinky??
What is a desert song, stink-pionk?
What is a censosr's most used article of equipment, stinky-pinky?
What is a baby with a lack of social responsibility, stinky-pinky?
What is a gal with the moaning after the night before, stinky-pinky?
What is a honey-dipped lieutenant junior-grade, stinky-pinky?
What is the luscious fruit growing around a sandy clime, stink-pink?
What is swimming in a sewer, stinky-pinky?
What is a beautifu, but dumb, gal with "identical" charms, stinky-pinky?
What is lettuce cut up without dressing, stinky-pinky?
What is a skinny spook, stink-pink?
What's an African cat caretaker known as, stinky-pinky?
What are French post cards, stinkitity-pinkitity?
ANSWERS:
Lewd Nude
Town Clown
Glad Dad, Happy Pappy
Dune Tune
Quizzer's Scissors
Piddling Kidling
Blearie Dearie
Gooey Looey
Beach Peach
Muciing Ducking
Simple Dimples
Daring Paring
Gaunt Haunt
Leopard Shepherd
Pornography Photography
This game even made it into a popular Sunday section newspaper column of this earlier era, titled Charlie Rice's Punchbowl. He called it "Hink-Pink". He did a column and invited readership send-ins and was inundated with 3,000 responses.
This game was actually so widespread that a comic strip titled "On Stage", by Leonard Starr, featured it one Sunday. He called it the Rhymie-Stymie game, though, and came up with such stunning rhyming sets as unilateral collateral (one-sided security), enigmatical sabbatical (puzzling vacation), endemic polymic (localized controversy), lexiphanic mechanic (phrase-mongering machinist), abecedarian parliamentaraian (novice statesman)
No comments:
Post a Comment