The Charades Parade!

My mother, Dorothy “Dot” Garman, LOVED the game of charades, much to the chagrin of the rest of our family.  When Dot brought up playing, you would hear the most creative excuses of other things to do and family members would scatter to the wind!  But, now I think Dot might have been onto something!

What does the word charades mean?

According to Wikipedia, the term charade was borrowed into English from French in the second half of the eighteenth century, denoting a "kind of riddle in which each syllable of a word, or a complete word or phrase, is enigmatically described or dramatically represented".

What is the purpose of charades?

The purpose of charades is to elicit a correct answer of a word, phrase, person’s name, movie character or the title of a movie (etc.) without saying anything. A person stands up in front of the class and can only use actions and movement to elicit the answer.

Which brings me to today.  In this everchanging world full of cultural and language mashups, it’s not always easy to communicate with each other no matter how much we might want to so you do have to do a little charade parade to get your point across.

One time when I was working in Paris, I needed saline for my contacts so I popped into this eye glass store.  I spoke ten French words, not one which was saline and I’m sure the store clerk spoke no English.  So, we had to act things out and draw pictures for each other.  And, we figured it out!  I got my saline and she got her sale so it was a win/win.  I’m sure anyone looking through the store windows would have been pretty entertained at how silly we looked, but we didn’t care.  We were communicating!

So goes it when you are trying to pitch new ideas to a group or a target market.  You must appeal to the three thinking styles … Visual, Auditory and Kinesthetic.  You must appeal to the visual thinkers with a picture or video of some type, the auditory people need music, noise and words and those kinesthetic folks process best when they have something to touch.  They are your pen clickers and they love play doh and fidget toys.  Pull all of that together with a prototype of your next toy or game and you’ll get their attention!  It’s your own charades parade!

So, who knew Dot was way ahead of her time?  Certainly not her daughter… until now!  Okay mom, just for you, “Three words, first word sounds like…”

##gert##