The Aunt Mary Game

I have no idea if that’s the real name of it. Judging by the results of searching the Intertubes, it’s not. That’s the name I learned, so I’m sticking with it unless or until someone provides the actual name.

First, why am I bothering to post this? If nothing else, I referenced it at the end of the Needy Macaroni post, although it was the Uncle Bob game, there. The original reason was because I had been watching Davie504 challenge videos. For those of you without a clue what that is, here’s a short, funny one:

The Toastmasters Club has a YouTube channel. My thought was: What could our club do in video that would be similar to those bass battle challenges? Toastmasters already has Table Topics, which are 1 to 2 minute talks on a topic that is given to you without prior knowledge. That’s close, but it is not a back-and-forth. I’ve done the round-robin-author story where one writes a bit then hands it off to another and then it comes back to you. That’s a bit long-format but it might work. I was thinking about something simpler, though. That’s when the Aunt Mary game came to mind.

This game is very boring when described in text because it is a verbal game. Seeing it written down usually makes it fairly obvious.

The game is started by someone saying “Aunt Mary loves XXX, but hates YYY”. The hates part is a decorative distraction. The key to the game is what she loves. The game can be played round-robin or by acclamation (i.e. just shout your answer to the group). The next person attempts to find the pattern by saying “Aunt Mary loves AAA, but hates BBB”, with the first person saying whether that is true or not and if not providing another example.

This is a lexical and phoneme game played audibly, which is why it’s so much easier in text. It’s fun to make newcomers figure it out, but that would defeat the point of explaining the game. Here’s an example:

“Aunt Mary loves to sweep, but she hates to clean.”

A noob might respond, “Aunt Mary loves to fry, but she hates to cook.” That would be taking the relationship between the loved and hated tasks into account. She loves the specific, but hates the general. This is not a semantic game, although creating a story out of it can be fun.

Breaking the story: “Aunt Mary weeps when she’s happy, but she never cries.” I can’t think of a case where this is not confirmation that the pattern has been found, but “double-e” may be too specific.

Continuing the story: “Aunt Mary loves to vacuum, but she hates dusting.” This may or may not pass muster. It depends what the originator was thinking. If he was thinking “double vowel”, this passes. If he was thinking “double e”, then it does not.

Getting one right is not proof that the pattern has been discovered. The originator must supply a correction if the responder is incorrect. I think for challenge purposes, a clarification should be required.

“True, but she also hoots when she’s happy, but never hollers” clarifies the first to be double-vowel. “No, she hates vacuuming because it’s noisy and she loves to sleep” corrects the second to push the “double-e” solution.

Everything except the one word is simply decoration, but attempting to build a coherent conversation about Aunt Mary into the game makes it more fun.

Bob’s my uncle – and he loves mac & cheese, but hates spaghetti. He also loves bacon & eggs, but dislikes omelets

Makes sense, now, doesn’t it?

BTW: The reaction of my fellow Toastmasters when I suggested we do this on video was less than enthusiastic. I highly recommend against holding your breath waiting for a video of me doing this with someone.