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Charades (, ). is a parlor game or party game word game guessing game. Originally, the game was a dramatic form of literary charades: a single person would act out each syllable of a word or phrase in order, followed by the whole phrase together, while the rest of the group guessed. A variant was to have teams who acted scenes out together while the others guessed. Today, it is common to require the actors to mime their hints without using any spoken words, which requires some conventional . and were and remain common.
Written forms of charade appeared in magazines and books, and on the folding fans of the British Regency. The answers were sometimes printed on the reverse of the fan, suggesting that they were a flirting device, used by a young woman to tease her beau. One charade composed by Jane Austen goes as follows:
William Mackworth Praed's poetic charades became famous.
Later examples omitted direct references to individual syllables, such as the following, said to be a favorite of Theodore Roosevelt:
In the early 20th century, the 11th edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica offered these two prose charades as "perhaps as good as could be selected":
and
with the answers being and Riddle.
Thackeray snarked that charades were enjoyed for "enabling the many ladies amongst us who had beauty to display their charms, and the fewer number who had cleverness, to exhibit their wit". In his Vanity Fair, the height of Rebecca Sharp's social success is brought on by her performances of acting charades before the George IV. The first scene—"first two syllables"—displays a pasha dealing with a slaver and his odalisque before being by the sultan's Kizlar Aga; the second—"last two syllables"—finds a Turk, his consort, and his black slave Salah at sunrise when an enormous ancient Egypt head enters and begins singing. The answer—Agamemnon—is then acted out by Becky's husband, while she makes her (first) appearance as Clytemnestra. After refreshments, another round begins, partially in pantomime: the first scene shows a household finishing a game of cribbage and preparing for bed; the second opens on the household bustling with activity as daybreak prompts bells ringing, arguments over receipts, collection of the , calls for carriages, and inn; the third closes with a ship's crew and passengers tossed about by a storm with gale. The answer—nightingale—is then (somewhat mistakenly) acted out by Becky in the role of a singing French marquise, recalling both Lacoste's 1705 tragic opera Philomèle and an arriviste lover and wife of Louis XIV. Apart from its importance in the book, the scenes were subsequently considered models of the genre.
By the time of the First World War, "acting charades" had become the most popular form and, as written charades were forgotten, it adopted its present, terser name. Thackeray's scenes—even those said to be "in pantomime"—included dialogue from the actors but truly "dumb" or "mime charades" gradually became more popular as well and similarly dropped their descriptive adjectives. The amateurish acting involved in charades led to the word's use to describe any obvious or inept deception, but over time "a charade" became used more broadly for any put-on (even highly competent and successful ones) and its original association with the parlor game has largely been lost.
The acted form of charades has been repeatedly made into television , including the American Play the Game, Movietown, RSVP, Pantomime Quiz, Stump the Stars, Celebrity Charades, Showoffs and Body Language; the British Give Us a Clue; the Canadian Party Game and Acting Crazy; and the Australian Celebrity Game. On British radio's BBC Radio 4, I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue performs a variant of the old written and spoken form of the game as Sound Charades.
In the 1939 movie The Mystery of Mr. Wong, the game is called "Indications".
Common features of the modern game include:
Some of these signs may be banned from some forms of the game.
Rules
As a long-lived and informal game, charades' rules can vary widely. Common features of the game include holding up a number of fingers to indicate the number of syllables in the answer, silently replying to questions, and making a "come on" gesture once the guesses become close; some forms of the games, however, forbid anything except physically acting out the answer. In a mixed setting, it is therefore advisable to clarify the rules before play begins.
Common signals
The following gestures are commonly used in the game:
See also
Notes
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