(Originally posted on my other blog 8-21-2006)
I have an old set of children's encyclopedia called " The Book of Knowledge". They are a recommended set from http://www.valerieslivingbooks.com/livingbks.htm. My mother acquired the set back in the late 1950's. I have loved them since I was a child, though I was unable to touch them without permission. My mother finally gave them to me when I was a young adult. I have since gotten another set off of E-Bay for only $30! I am "The Book of Knowledge" rich!
I was leafing through Volume 10 last night before bed and found a cute little thinking game called "Doublets". I will transcribe it from the book:
The game of doublets is an interesting word game that gives plenty of scope for skill and ingenuity, and enables us to exercise our memories and to make good use of our knowledge of words. Two words are chosen, each containing the same number of letters, and the words should be quite opposite such as right and wrong, good and evil, rise and fall, and so on, or they should stand for things quite different from one another as wood and iron, butter and cheese, soap and grease.
The game is to change one word into the other by changing only one letter at a time and by making a chain of words between the doublets. Two or three examples will make the method clear: (there were many more examples, but I am only typing three!)
cat black beef
cot block been
dot clock bean
dog click beak
chick peak
**** perk
chine pork
whine
white
It will be seen by these examples that only one letter is altered in each word to make the next, and every change makes an actual dictionary word....(no nonsensical words allowed)...Then the transformation from one word to the other must be made with as few changes as possible...It must be understood that in changing one letter to make a new word in the chain, the substituted letter must occupy the same position in the new word that the discarded letter did in the old word. Thus we can change bean into bran, but not into barn...
Sounds pretty neat, huh! I did edit a little (there are ...'s) where the explaination was a somewhat longwinded. Let me know what you think! We are going to do this activity this afternoon!
