WORD column:

by Scott Westerfeld
Page 2

Often, a beginning player will not realize that verb and profession should not contain the same root, as in the unacceptable:

An organist is disorganized.

Unfortunately, the alternative is a Display in which the profession seems rather flat:

A church musician is disorganized.

Thus, the surgeon is considered the best profession for disorganized.

Due to the popularity of the game, you will find players very well-versed in obscure professions. Therefore, don't be afraid to try:

A sound effects artist is defoliated.

One question often asked is: "When constructing a Display, should one start with a profession and try to find an appropriate verb or vice versa?" A few thought experiments will reveal that it is easier to start with the verb. A simple recipe follows:

1) Take a negative transitive verb (or an adjective that sounds like one) that contains a recognizable word, such as fold in unfolded.

2) Think of a profession related to the contained word. What job is related to folding or folds?

3) Remember to consider the importance of disjunction. Choose an unusual denotation for fold, perhaps from cooking, cosmology, or farming.

4) Choose a clear but disjunct example. The best:

A shepherd is unfolded.

In non-tournament play, it is acceptable to include behaviour types as well as professions. For example:

An alcoholic is delivered.

A drug addict is disjointed, unhorsed, and deluded.

And a personal favorite of mine:

A pessimist is decanted.

Again, however, make sure that this sub-species of Display has a sufficient amount of disjunction to it. More than one neophyte has been ejected for declaiming:

An exhibitionist is denuded.

It is also acceptable to use well-known personalities. Thanks to the extensive parallel cultural evolution between the two planets, several of this type of Display translate:

Colonel Sanders is disenfranchised.

Ralph Lauren is depleted.

A certain amount of debate concerns the acceptability of:

Kate Moss is derailed.

Critics charge that this Display lacks disjunction, because the rail in derailed is in fact what Kate Moss is as skinny as. I side with the majority in the matter, who find a simile as good as a metaphor in providing adequate disjunction.

Political figures are of course fair game. The caustic former Senate Majority Leader and our equivocal President suffer as follows:

Bob Dole is demeaned.

Bill Clinon is defenestrated.

Another variant on the game is to skip human beings altogether, and concentrate on inanimate objects. In this game, play begins:

If a ship is decommisioned...

A number of examples follow:

A cathedral is uninspired.

A clubhouse is dismembered.

A stable is derided.

A bank is disinterested.

A castle is demoted.

Of course, if you want to practice prior to taking a trip to our sister planet, gather a few friends and follow the rules as given above. Long time limits or none at all will keep stress from interfering with your creativity. No writing implements are allowed, however; all "stockpiling" of ideas during another's turn must be performed mentally.

When a Display is challenged for acceptability, sometimes agreement is hard to reach. The most frequent culprits have been treated above. A refresher course:

Lack of disjunction:

An equestrian is unhorsed.

Shared roots:

A lighting designer is delighted.

Lame "professions"

A horse-feeding guy is unnoted.

A more difficult challenge is to reject Displays that are unacceptable for more general, even ineffable reasons. Sometimes players will simply come up with inelegant monsters that defy exact categorization; they are simply lame:

A chess champion is displayed.

A nurse is distended.

A weight-lifter is disgruntled.*

When in doubt, commity is the meta-rule that will place all others into proper perspective. (Another good trick is to allow more than one unacceptable pun prior to ejection.)

In introducing this game to our own planet, one ethical issue arises. With the cultural diversity between our two worlds already so scant, why reduce it further? As this game is the only disjunction, as it were, between the two cultures, perhaps to play it here on Earth is to make the universe less interesting.

To answer this I must point out a phenomenon that I discovered after gaining proficiency in the game myself. Often, a Display that seemed to me perfectly disjunct and amusing, was to my otherwise indulgent hosts completely unacceptable. Despitative a-, as in affronted.

Just as puns prise open disjunctions and connections among words, perhaps Displaying can discover and illuminate differences between worlds. Rather than making us more like them, perhaps the art of the Display will show us that our greatest differences were hidden, our rogue Displays having served the greater purpose of making the universe more amusing.