Pain in the English
Pain in the English

Unpacking English, Bit by Bit

A community for questioning, nitpicking, and debating the quirks and rules of the English language.

Pain in the English
Pain in the English

Unpacking English, Bit by Bit

A community for questioning, nitpicking, and debating the quirks and rules of the English language.

Example

Can anyone give an example of verbal “charade” plesae?

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Comments

Could this be a clue? Found this partial definition:

"charade : n 1: a composition that imitates somebody's style in a humorous way [syn: parody, lampoon, spoof, sendup, mockery, takeoff, burlesque, travesty, pasquinade, put-on]"

speedwell2 Jul-23-2004

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Could you expand a little on what you mean by "verbal charade"? Perhaps you could give us the context in which you've heard that phrase?

Dave3 Jul-23-2004

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OK. Webster online says "A verbal or acted enigma based upon a word which has two or more significant syllables or parts, each of which, as well as the word itself, is to be guessed from the descriptions or representations."
So I did not have any example to see what it could really be like.
http://www.webster-dictionary.org/definition/charade

goossun Jul-23-2004

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In that case, I'm not sure. I've never known Charades as a game to be played in any other way than mime.

Dave3 Jul-24-2004

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Although... from the Webster definition, I guess it could be something like this:

Website, four words:
First word - sheet of glass
Fourth word - name of a language

(Answer: Pain in the English)

Is that the kind of example you were looking for?

Dave3 Jul-24-2004

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in GAMES magazine, every issue has two wicked cryptic crosswords. One type of answer is called a charade - where the answer is broken into smaller words, which are clued individually.

For example, the clue "Auto animal" yields the answer CARPET.

carriegood1 Jul-30-2004

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don't not get what your want me to do!!!!!!!

me1 Oct-29-2004

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I get it now I think it means that its something you guess on and I have never answered a question like this before on the computer

me__again Oct-29-2004

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