This should be a fun project – please take a minute to share your immediate reactions to the statements below.
Bridge kind of has its own language. Sometimes you catch snippets of people’s conversations, and you know the gist of what they’re talking about. I’ve been aware at times, though, that perhaps my bridge conversations are NOT easy to figure out.
Another bridge blogger is also interested in this, and has compiled a list of sentences you might overhear in a discussion between bridge players.
So tell me, if you heard someone say any of these sentences, what would YOU think was being said? Please share your thoughts for any or all of these.
- I didn’t have the right hand to balance with a double!
- You’re supposed to have a stiff when you splinter.
- Why didn’t you try a double strip squeeze?
- I was five, five, two, one with hearts and diamonds.
- I was trying to save the beer card.
- We used the VCR to find the grand.
- I tried to signal for a club, but I only had high spots.
- Jack third isn’t a real stopper.
- It was a two-suiter.
- I couldn’t make it after I got stuck in the dummy.
- My righty hit it in the pass out seat.
- Who won the Swiss?
December 23rd, 2009 10:18 am
I don’t understand this post. Are you looking for funny answers, like what we would think was being said if we didn’t know you were talking bridge language? Or how many of these words make sense in their correct context to a non-native speaker? Assuming the latter, I’ve heard of a squeeze, and signalling for something, and Swiss, but I don’t know what any of these means. I would guess that #4 has something to do with counting the points in your hand, but I could be way off. I know for sure what suits are, unless a two-suiter means something different in bridge, and I know what the dummy is. Honestly, I don’t have any funny answers, because it all sounds enough like bridge to me that I register it as bridgespeak/pleasant background noise, much like radio sportscasts.
December 23rd, 2009 12:10 pm
Basically, the question is: if you were in a restaurant and walked by another table and overheard someone say “I was trying to save the beer card” — how do you interpret this statement?
If you recognize it as bridge slang, i would still be interested in your interpretation.
December 23rd, 2009 1:38 pm
I don’t think I’m any help here. If I heard this in a restaurant, I would likely eavesdrop long enough to hear something I definitely knew was bridge jargon, and then I would think “They’re bridge players! I wonder whether they compete, and if they’re any good. I wonder whether they would be interested to know that my brother and his girlfriend play competitively.” It would never occur to me to wonder what the jargon meant – I would be more interested in recognizing it and thus making the connection between these strangers and people I know. If I actively try to imagine what it might mean, I guess something like holding an extra trump for safety, and there’s a club rule that somebody has to buy a round when you win a hand by a certain number of points. Mostly, though, I would just think it meant they knew something I didn’t, and focus on the fact that I know someone who does know what they know, and that this might interest them if I brought it up.
December 23rd, 2009 1:46 pm
Okay, yeah, I’m definitely no help. I followed your link to the other bridge blog, and I think she’s looking for funny non-bridge explanations. I’m pretty sure I would recognize bridge was being talked about through a mixture of context clues and what little jargon I know, so any explanation I would come up with would be colored by that. Disqualified.