Talk:Chinese whispers

message: Just a quick question regarding the page move (Telephone game -> Telephone (game)): is it really generally referred to as "telephone", rather than, say, "the telephone game" (or, indeed "that telephone game"). I don't claim to know - I have only ever known it as "Chinese whispers", but it just surprises me that that should be the usage somehow. - IMSoP 04:23, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Yup, I've heard it referred to as "Telephone." Brian Kendig 19:53, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Fair enough then. - IMSoP 19:16, 22 May 2004 (UTC)

text: "Chinese" seems to be used here as a meaningless adjective, as in "Chinese fire drill". Philwelch 18:23, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: And, Chinese finger cuffs. --Viriditas  | Talk 04:57, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I also believe that the term "Chinese" here is being used in the same manner as it is used in "Chinese fire drill," but not as a meaningless adjective.  There, the term "Chinese" means confused or disoriented (check the "Chinese fire drill" article here on Wikipedia).  The name "Chinese whispers" for this game honestly struck me as borderline-derogatory at first glance (having never heard of the term myself). 138.69.160.1 17:22, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Opening comments 

message: When I was at school we once played a written version of this kind of game.  The idea is that we are shown a sentence for a few seconds, have to memorise it and then write it down to pass on to the next person.  Effectively it's testing memory rather than sense of hearing.  Is there a name for this game? -- Smjg 17:03, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Use Google.com  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.253.103.70 (talk) 06:44, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  A written version 

message: I am intrigued as to why the example was chosen "Johnny can you please pick up the pencil that you dropped, and please remember to take your homework with you to school tomorrow." 
It appeared anonymously in :
Revision as of 14:52, 14 October 2005
71.103.222.113 (Talk | contribs) 
I'm not sure an example is required at all, but why was this one chosen?
--Parasite 02:57, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Example used in text 

message: :Add  * Support  or  * Oppose  on a new line followed by a brief explanation, then sign your opinion using ~~~~.
*Support Per nomination.  Also open to alternatives like "Broken Telephone", etc., although my understanding is that just plain "Telephone" is the most common. schi talk 23:40, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It seems to be pure speculation as to which name is more common than the other. Per Jayjg's comment below, "Chinese whispers" may be the British name. schi talk 23:12, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Interesting. I am American, and I will admit that I always heard it as the telephone game. Maybe there's merit to this suggestion. I'll strike my oppose, because if it's not a more common term, and it's possible people will get offended, it might as well go the other way (though this isn't a support statement either: a neutral). Part Deux 01:30, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Survey 

message: I've made some edits, mainly to add references in the light of the foregoing debate. I removed some bits:
*This describes not the game, but the error it seeks to caution against:
::An apocryphal story in the UK is of a general who sent the message "Send reinforcements, we are going to advance" back to HQ. After passing through many intermediaries it finally arrived as "Send three and fourpence, we are going to a dance".
*I don't see how the line can fail to be completed:
::Even if the line is not completed, the last few people to receive the message can compare this with the original
*The second half is vague and redundant:
::The game has been used in schools to simulate the spread of gossip and its harmful effects, and it has implications in many topics, like bureaucracy, religion, politics and Academia.
I think the article should be moved to Telephone game.  The only argument against seems to be that political correctness is not a reason to move; but in any case the history shows the article was first at :Telephone game and later moved to :Chinese whispers; so by the priority principle it should not have been moved.  Having said which, all the references I've added use "Chinese whispers"...  
I think the current examples are rather trivial and not illustrative of the game; they exploit its familiarity for humour, which is not helpful to a reader seeking to understand a game they do not already know.  If there is a published account of one or more actual games, it would be more useful: whether gleaned from some dry academic tome, or from a journalistic colour-piece, or from a self-indulgent memoir. jnestorius(talk) 22:51, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Name, references, changes 

message: Seems to me like the so-claimed military history is more of an urban legend. Otherwise, why does everyone on the net refer to "a general", but nobody says who he was, and apart from one instance, in what war it was?Ladypine 21:52, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  History? 

message: * Spanish: el teléfono estropeado/dañado/descompuesto ("broken telephone") el telefonito
The spanish line seems wrong. Seems like it says "the tiny telephone" at the end of the line. Is this an alternative name? Or should this not be there at all?Ladypine 22:12, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: ¡Listo! Removed the "telefonito" mention, which I imagine was added by someone who calls it that in their region. —SaulPerdomo 00:21, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spanish 

message: The children sit in a circle and the originator on the message coming back to them gives both original and end versions. Jackiespeel 18:07, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Versions

message: There could be correlation of how urban legends begin and slowly get exaggerated, maybe also helping explain how Jesus goes from preacher of peace to son of God etc.
 How? The Old Testament was written with an original copy always there and if you had to copy "see Spot run," you would look and see "s" write "s", look back see "e" write "e", look back see a space put in a space, look back see "S" write "S", look back see "p" wrieete "p", look back see "o" write "o", look back see, well, you get the idea. 
here's a comparison of never doubted ancient work and the new testament
Author                   Written        Earliest Copies     Time Span   # of Copies
Caesar (Gallic Wars)         100-44 BC    c. AD 900     c. 1,000 years              10 
Plato (Tetralogies)           427-347 BC   c. AD 900     c. 1,300 years              7
Thucydides (History)       460-400 BC   c. AD 900        c. 1,300 years              8
Sophocles                 496-406 BC   c. AD 1,000       c. 1,400 years              100
Catullus                 54 BC         c. AD 1,550       c. 1,600 years              3
Euripides                480-406 BC   c. AD 1,100        c. 1,500 years              9
Aristotle                384-322 BC   c. AD 1,100        c. 1,400 years              5 
Homer (Iliad)            800 BC       c. 400 BC          c. 400 years              643
Herodotus (History)      480-425 BC   c. AD 900          c. 1,350 years              8
Demosthenes               300 BC      c. AD 1100         c. 1,400 years              200
Livy (History of Rome)    59 BC       c. 350 (partial)   c. 400 years              1 partial
                          to AD 17     c. 10th century   c. 1,000 years              19
Pliny Secundus 
(Natural History)         61-113       c. AD 850          c. 750 years               7
New Testament             AD 40-100    AD 125             25 years                   24,000+
from Josh McDowell and Bob Hostetler, Don't Check Your Brains at the Door, and Josh McDowell, New Evidence that Demands a Verdict
68.50.253.178 (talk) 23:57, 13 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Religion/Urban Legends

message: it is very nice to know each country in europe had the same stereotype. 194.76.29.2 (talk) 09:23, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: "reflects the former stereotype in Europe"

message: In Serbia, we call this game "Deaf Telephones". RocketMaster (talk) 13:09, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Serbian broken telephone. 

message: I question the accuracy of the unsourced statements in what is now the third paragraph of the lead. It is my understanding that the errors in the retellings accumulate precisely because the players do understand the statement, but make cognitive errors in hearing and attempting to quote it. When the company then known as Mead Data Central created one of the first large-scale indexed, searchable text databases by manually keying-in text (Lexis), it found that typists who did not know the language of the text that they were copying were more accurate than native speakers of the language. Native speakers typed the word that they thought they saw, and understood, whereas typists who did not understand the language more carefully copied the text character-by-character. Unless reliable sources are supplied for these statements, including their applicability to the game that is the subject of the article, within about 2 weeks, I intend to delete this paragraph. Finell (Talk) 18:53, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Finell (Talk) 04:25, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Accuracy question 

message: I deleted the statement, in the Purpose section, that the game of Chinese whispers is used in ESL classes. The external link that was at the end of that statement does not support the statement. The link, to a page on a web site developed by one ESL teacher, describes The Charades Race Game. In explaining how to play Charades Race, the page describes the Telephone Game (i.e., Chinese whispers) as an analogy or comparison. The page does not say that Telephone (i.e., Chinese whispers) itself is played in ESL classrooms. Furthermore, the same site has a list of ESL Classroom Games. Chinese whispers is not on that list; Charades Race is. Again, this second page mentions Chinese whispers to help describe Charades Race. Please do not restore the statement about using Chinese whispers in ESL without a citation that supports the statement and that meets Wikipedia's standards for reliable sources. This Web site, the product of one teacher, probably would not qualify as a reliable source in any event. Thank you. Finell (Talk) 00:18, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  No source supports statement that Chinese whispers is used in ESL 

message: I have never heard of the "Telephone Game" or "Chinese Whispers". I am from Pennsylvania, USA. This same game however, was always referred to as "Whisper down the lane". Is this common any where else? Should this be added as another name for the same game? It seems the wikipedia redirects "Whisper down the lane" to Chinese Whispers, but other than that, no other mention to this title is made. Is this a local name only?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.137.137.210 (talk) 03:06, 1 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Whisper Down The Lane? 

message: This was a standard bit on the old Jack Parr show. He would assemble a bunch of celebrities, each pair of whom spoke two different languages. He would start the story in English, and each celebrity would then translate the story to the next person in another language both understood. At the end when it had gone through many translations, it was translated back into English, and of course it was very different from the original version, often incomprehensible, much to the delight of the audience.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.20.107.146 (talk) 15:32, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Jack Parr's TV version 

message: The entire worlds population plays this game daily... Are they interpreting this game as anybody who gossips plays the game? Then I could see that being relevant.. Maybe. lol 2602:4B:7996:5500:7448:E325:473D:B747 (talk) 04:13, 1 February 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  3 billion-7 billion 

message: Is there any evidence to support an origin story?  I ask because in Yoko Ono's Grapefruit, I find the following: "WHISPER PIECE / Whisper. / This piece was originally called a telephone piece, and was the starting of the word-of-mouth pieces. It is usually performed by the performer whispering a word or a note into an audience's ear and asking to have it passed on until it reaches the last person in the audience."  Did Ono invent this game?  No likely.  But I would like to know.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jmuse99 (talk • contribs) 23:32, 3 February 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  History + Yoko Ono 

message: Please add in a history of why Chinese Whispers is called Chinese Whispers.
Qwertyxp2000 (talk) 00:14, 28 June 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why Chinese? 

message: The first sentence reads as follows:
Chinese whispers (or telephone in the United States)...
But is this  "telephone" or "Chinese telephone"?85.193.218.118 (talk) 04:26, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ambiguous sentence 

message: Just for the record, I'd like to note that the 2 IP addresses who opposed were very not convincing as far as I'm concerned.  There is a solid argument on WP:TITLEVAR per RGlouster that the title shouldn't be messed with after so long, but 2 IP addies claiming that it's called "Chinese Whispers" in the US smells fishy to me.  I never heard of "Chinese Whispers" until the above MR as an American, so the usage appears rare at least.
I do think it's too bad the closer didn't address the WP:RETAIN argument.  I can see the no consensus close regardless, but the RETAIN argument is very strong IMHO and the main reason to do the move, regardless of issues of causing offense or not.  SnowFire (talk) 21:46, 18 June 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: If you don't agree with it, you can always ask for a move review.  I too thought the same thing, that RETAIN was a pretty good argument (as was ENGVAR) for restoring back to how the article was originally titled. It does seem that once an article gets a British English title, that restoring back to the original title goes out the window, and one must RETAIN the British English, at all costs.  I obviously have views on this, so I will not be asking for a move review, if someone without a dog in this fight wants to and feels that is warranted, by all means.  ~ipuser 94.14.212.141 (talk) 08:12, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comments on move 

message: You can't deny that this term is not ignorant because it clearly mentions "Europeans' inability to understand China's culture" and "Westerners' use of the word Chinese to denote 'confusion' and 'incomprehensibility'". Besides, Europeans and Westerners is wrong. It's only English. No article in any other language is titled "Chinese". --2.245.212.152 (talk) 21:45, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Still racist, at least ignorant 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: The last two paragraphs in the Etymology section aren't about etymology. Would someone more intimately connected to this article than I like to retitle that part? Cognita (talk) 05:18, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Additional heading is needed 

message: *With respect to RETAIN there are 3 valid reasons for changing the variety of English once established, (1) if the subject has strong ties to 1 version such as Monopoly that used both "color" and "colour" on the 2nd edit (even though Monopoly is international it originated in the US) (2) to a version acceptable in more or preferable all (COMMONALITY) such as Glasses or where it reduces ambiguity (ATDAB) such as Elevator. I think that the 3rd applies here for the move in 2006. Crouch, Swale (talk)  21:32, 11 November 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed, the move may have been justified even under present rules. Additionally some of the above discussion appears to be operating on the assumption that we should apply present rules to a move made in 2006. For example above we have people saying that , but in 2006 moves were explicitly allowed undiscussed, so why did the 2006 mover have to open an RM? What was the rule they were supposed to have followed that actually existed in 2006? The present injunctions against changing EngVar were much less strongly worded then and they likely thought they had a good reason to make an undiscussed move. FOARP (talk) 09:55, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: I wouldn't go as far as that the move was OK under the 2006 RM general rule, neither the article title policy nor the disambiguation guideline appeared to mention natural disambiguation (but the MOS did appear to generally not allow it) but the main point is that the move would have been acceptable in 2006 under our current rules even if not under the 2006 rules or a move would be too controversial in 2020. Crouch, Swale (talk)  19:48, 13 November 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Requested move 28 October 2020 :: split point 1

message: After the third requested move has again resulted in no consensus, I think that we should focus on improving this article and leave the argument about the title behind. If, however, anyone wants to re-open this issue for a fourth time I urge them to consider that the following arguments have been tried repeatedly and failed to become consensus each time:
:*"The name is racist" - As presently described in the article, the actual origin of the name is unknown. A number of theories exist for its origin, including theories that have absolutely nothing to do with whether or not the average English speaker can understand the Chinese language (e.g., the Great Wall theory). Even if you think that using "Chinese" as a synonym for "something misunderstood" is necessarily racist, you have to contend with the very widespread use of this phrase which indicates the contrary. If you think using a British name is POV, then I invite you to consider that using the US name is hardly less POV. 
:*"Telephone is the common name" - The issue here is that the Google Ngrams data shows the precise opposite (Chinese whispers was 30% more common at peak than the variants of "Telephone game" combined). Moreover analysis of GBooks hits shows that about half the time they are used in print, the phrases "telephone game" and "game of telephone" were being used to refer to something completely different than the subject of this article. For example these phrases are used to refer to concept in game theory, the telephone industry, or some other thing that is not this game such as playing chess over the telephone. In contrast "Chinese Whispers" is only ever used to refer to this game, if only by allusion, whilst "Telephone game" is actually pretty ambiguous which probably explains why it isn't used as much as a metaphor. 
:*"Telephone was the original name" - The name changed more than 15 years ago. We don't know the reason for the move, but it appears to have justified under WP:NATDAB given that "Telephone game" and "Telephone (game)" are both ambiguous. The article is now more than twice as long as it was then and has been edited hundreds of times since then. The argument that the name should revert to that used in 2006 was never strong and has become weaker as time goes on. The present name is clearly the one that is "established in an article" for the purposes of WP:RETAIN. 
In contrast the present name has WP:RETAIN, WP:NATDAB, WP:NOTCENSORED, WP:ENGVAR, and WP:CRITERIA on its side. In the absence of a new and persuasive argument to move I really think this should be a closed matter. Please consider this a standing vote against moving in any future move-request. FOARP (talk) 13:30, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Are you now saying that because it ceased to be a stub with British spelling that sets that variety for the purpose of RETAIN even though the title was American and intro had "telephone game" first? Crouch, Swale (talk)  18:48, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: The title should match the English variety in the article, when applicable. —В²C ☎ 20:27, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: TBH, I think this shows why we should be cautious about treating what someone wrote off-hand ~20 years ago as though it were the Dead Sea Scrolls. Prolonged usage and stability, rather than blind adherence to a rule that is at best a tie-breaker when all else fails, is the important thing here. However I congratulate B2c on spotting something not spotted by anyone (myself included) in numerous RM discussions - that the original EngVar wasn't even consistent throughout the article. FOARP (talk) 13:20, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
replies: text:  Does that resolve the RETAIN debate? I guess WP:POLCON may apply with regard to COMMONNAME and ATDAB but I don't think POLCON even needs to be applied since there doesn't seem to be conflict anyway since RETAIN already explicitly or at least implicitly allows such changes and policies are generally more general while particular guidelines or essays may be more specific in dealing with something but a policy may override them for example COMMONNAME may override a particular NC if an exception is found that common usage favours a different name. Should  be added to this talk page? Crouch, Swale (talk)  19:45, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: I've stated my opinion favoring "Telephone" before but agree with FOARP in so far as I'm not sure it's productive to keep at it - not because it's wrong, but because it's become a waste of time.  I will say that FOARP's claims above are overstated as far as acting as if the pro-Telephone side's arguments have been "refuted".  In particular, the "it's racist" section wildly misunderstands...  well, everything...  but that's a longer discussion, and I just stated it's probably not productive to relitigate.  (Notably, "it's used everywhere so it can't possibly be racist" is just...  uh...  not true, plenty of phrases can be both racist and common.  And somehow "telephone" is just as bad?  What?  Nonsense.)  SnowFire (talk) 20:06, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Which, if you actually read it, isn't what FOARP said at all! -- Necrothesp (talk) 20:55, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Let's close the name issue 

message: I'm too lazy to do the research, but I wonder if anyone has investigated this theory: Madarin Chinese has shifts of pitch as part of its phonetics (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_(linguistics)#Asia), and when whispering, syllables are 'unvoiced' and so do not have pitch information, thereby creating much more scope for ambiguity. By contrast, in English, we would only miss out on whether or not a consonant is voiced, but this is actually redundant information because in English voiced consonants are always unaspirated while unvoiced consonants are always aspirated. So from an English-speaking point of view, the Chinese language is much more prone to being rendered ambiguous by whispering.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.221.63.228 (talk) 11:22, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: As far as anyone can see the origins are unknown with various sourced speculations already described in the article, one of which is that the Chinese language is not understood by most English-speakers. FOARP (talk) 08:31, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Speculated origins of name "Chinese Whispers"