Two Pages of Signals & Tips for CHARADES

The Most Important Part

Relax; you will get accustomed to the signals. Usually, a word's signalresembles the word itself, for easy learning. The most important thing is to have fun!☺

Writing an Entry

Please use the paper that the host provides. Write only one entry per piece of paper.

Include *YOUR NAME*, the category (categories are listed below), and the words (1 to 10). Write "1" under the first word, "2" under the second, etc. After writing an entry, fold it put it into the bag.

You may include a small number ofwell-known foreign words, although almost all writers use just English.

Be sure you know how to act your own entries, because you might be the one who actsthem!

Acting an Entry (when it is your turn during a round of play)

Pick an entry from the bag. Ordinarily, that's what you will act. However, if the entry is too hard, you can give it to the writer (who must act it during his/her next turn), insteadyou pick another entry, which you must act. However, you can't give an entry to a writer (so you must act it)if it would cause the total number of entries that the writer acts to exceed the number of rounds of play; this exception is very rare.

Here’s how to act an entry:

1)Announce the name of the writer, who then will know that he/she should not participate in guessing.

2) Silently act the category, including modifiers(ifany). Here are the categories and then the modifiers:

  • song: Hold imaginary microphone near mouth, stretch other hand out, silently sing.
  • play: Pull rope downward to open curtain.
  • TV show: Using both hands, draw rectangle for TV screen.
  • movie: With one hand, crank old-fashioned movie camera.
  • book: Both hands' palms up, resembling book.
  • poem: Both hands' palms up, resembling book, & bounce them up down (a bouncy book).
  • quote: Quotation marks with first two fingers of both hands.
  • name of person: Hands on hips.
  • headline: Wipe finger horizontally across forehead (a head line ☺).
  • location: Draw circle with one hand, then point to center, as if pointing to dot on map.

Before a category’s main word (shown above), the writer might modifythe category with:

  • gag (humorous variation on original wording): Thumb forefinger around throat.
  • quote from (from song, play, TV, movie, book, poem): Quotation marks with first two fingers of both hands.

3)Silently act the number of words: Hold up that many fingers.

4)Silently actthe words: Described on next page.

4)Silently actthe words: You can act anything you want, but here are suggested signals:

Here are signals for overallcommunication:

  • act one word: Hold up number of fingers to indicate which word.
  • actseveral words together: Hold up those numbers of fingers successively; then draw circle with both hands.
  • number of syllables in word (optional;you may omit): Place that many fingers on upper arm.
  • act one syllable (optional; you may act entire word at once): Place number of fingers on lower arm to indicate which syllable.
  • actseveral syllables together (but less than entire word): Place those numbers of fingers successively on lower arm; then draw circle with both hands.
  • on the nose ("you guessed correctly"): Point to thatguesser, & place your other forefinger on your nose.
  • recap ("please repeat everything that was guessed correctly so far"): Screw cap onto bottle (re-cap ☺).
  • "please back up to your earlier guess": Point to thatguesser, & step backward.

These are modifications of a word aftera guesser has guessed the word as a starting point:

  • sounds like: Put hand near ear. This almostalways means "rhymes with." If you don't want rhyming, you can frown to tell the guessers to switch from rhymes to other things.
  • opposite: Hands forward, & exchange their positions.
  • delete first letter or sound: Karate-chop hand into other hand’s palm.
  • delete last letter or sound: Karate-chop hand into other hand’s fingers.
  • add letter or sound to beginning: Hands together, & stretch palms apart horizontally.
  • add letter or sound to end: Hands together, & stretch fingers apart horizontally.
  • past tense: Move hand backward over shoulder.
  • plural or possessive: Curl both hands' fingers to form "S." Occasionally tricky; man becomesmen or man’s.
  • whole concept (more generic): Draw circle with both hands.
  • more specific: Fist into other hand’s palm.
  • translate word to foreign language: Point to tongue. Guessers guess languages, you act on the nose for correct one, & guessers then say the foreign word.

Most words don't have "standard" signals, so you must improvise, but here are a fewspecific words:

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  • and: Form "+," using both hands.
  • the: Form "T," using both hands.
  • that: Act theabovehead (the + hat = that ☺).
  • this: Act thatopposite.
  • woman: Draw woman’s figure with both hands.
  • man: Act womanopposite.
  • will or shall: Act past tenseopposite.
  • with: Put one arm around imaginary person.

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These are groups of words; guessers guess words from the group, & you act on the nose for correct word:

  • a color: Salute (salute the colors ☺).
  • a short word (a, am, an, as, at, be, by, if, in, is, it, of, on, or, so, to, ...): Thumb & forefinger slightly apart.
  • a letter (if it or the pronunciationor a modification is an entire syllable of entry; spelling a multi-letter syllable is cheating!): Karate-chop hand into other forearm (near top of forearm if near "A"; near bottom if near "Z").
  • a number: Repeatedly poke finger into other hand’s palm, as if using calculator. Guessers guess numbers; you point "go up" or "go down."

A Few Tips forActing

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  1. Think from the guessers' perspective.
  2. A word pronounced the same is OK: 2 for "too."
  3. Acting a word might help guessers interpret your signals for related words. Acting a rarely used word might inspire a guess of an entire entry.
  4. Try to act a word directly. If that's too hard, try syllables, or try to thinkbackwards from the entry's word to find a modification or series of modifications that starts from an easier word.
  5. If a method fails, try a different method, or postpone the word.
  6. After acting sounds like, add to beginning, or add to end, optionally you can speed the guessing by signaling the alphabetic position of the desired letter: Hold your hand high and lower it (for a letter in the range A through M), or hold your hand low and raise it (for Z through N).
  7. Relax & have fun! ☺

Charades Signals, edited 6/7/2014, page 1 of 2