What Is The Question?
| No. of Players: | 2+ |
| Type of Game: | written or spoken |
| What you need: | pen & paper or nothing |
Goal
To think of a question to match a particular reply.
How to play
The gamemaster gives the answer to a question which is not revealed. The other players then try to think of a question to match the given answer.
This game can be played competitively, where players asking questions demonstrate their knowledge of the obscure answers given by the gamemaster. In this version, the player with the best matched question becomes the next gamemaster. Or this game can be played simply for fun, where players attempt to make each other laugh with their funny questions. In this version, the player with the funniest question gets to give the answer in the next round.
Example
The players agree to speak their answers, write down their questions, and rotate the role of gamemaster. Abigail is elected to give the first answer.
| Abigail: | The answer is New Jersey. |
| Bethany: | What did Delaware? |
| Cary: | What did the football player get for Christmas? |
| Bethany: | The answer is vegetarian. |
| Cary: | Who never says "no whey?" |
| Abigail: | Who made a huge missed steak? |
| Cary: | The answer is carpet. |
| Abigail: | What do you call a cat that lives in your sedan? |
| Bethany: | Who told the floor "I got you covered?" |
And so on.
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?
