Counter-Questions
| No. of Players: | 2 |
| Type of Game: | spoken |
| What you need: | nothing |
Goal
To answer questions with questions.
How to play
The first player asks a question and the second player answers with a question. The first player then answers the second person's question with another question, and so on. All answers must be in question form, and no overly long pauses or repetitions of questions are permitted. Questions must also further the conversation in a sensible way – non sequiturs are not permitted either. The first player to violate any of these rules loses the game. An overall champion can be declared after a set number of rounds has passed.
Example
| Armando: | What day is it today? |
| Britta: | Why do you ask? |
| Armando: | Can you just answer me? |
| Britta: | Are you going to be difficult? |
| Armando: | Is being difficult a problem for you? |
| Britta: | Can you define what you mean by problem? |
| Armando: | Will you be able to understand if I do? |
| Britta: | Do you think I'm not smart enough? |
| Armando: | Are you smart enough to tell me what day is tomorrow, then? |
| Britta: | Don't you know it is the day after today? |
| Armando: | And what day of the week is the day before tomorrow called? |
| Britta: | Are you complicating things? |
| Armando: | You won't answer complicated questions as well as simple ones? |
| Britta: | Why do you think simple questions are simpler to answer? |
| Armando: | Will you stop making a mockery of my questions to you? |
| Britta: | Really, what are you trying to get at? |
| Armando: | Do you often get confronted by questioners with ulterior motives? |
| Britta: | What does 'ulterior motives' mean? |
| Armando: | Are you going to be difficult? |
| Britta: | Repetition! I already asked that question. You lose! |
Did you know?
The historical origins of the question mark is (pardon the pun) a bit of a question mark.
One theory says that scholars in the Middle Ages would write the Latin word quaestio at the end of a sentence to show it was a question. Since this was rather cumbersome to write out each time, it was eventually abbreviated. First to qo, then to q on top of o, and finally into the "?" symbol we know today. This is much like how our own cursive signature, which we once perfected in third grade, eventually morphed into the squiggly lines we now use as adults. But alas, there is little evidence to back up this theory.
A competing theory, also unsubstantiated, argues that the curve of the question mark traces back to the ancient Egyptians. Since Egyptians were famed for their worship of cats, it makes sense they would have been inspired by the similar shape of an inquisitive cat's tail.
In the end, perhaps it's appropriate this question remains a mystery. What do you think?
