Part of me wants to say "dumb it down for the Americans," which I suspect is not really what you intended to say.)

Thankyou for the benefit of the doubt. I mean what I say as a complement unless I deliberately say otherwise.

See RayK patois. If you can stand it.

Brenda, nobody deserves RayK patois.

The woods behind our house served as various imaginary lands, though since my mom is a champion worrier, I could only

I misread your mother to be the champion warrior of these imaginary lands...

My house had a big ravine with a river and a stream. We dammed up the stream a couple times. Sometimes there'd be police helicopters over the ravine with searchlights, but we never saw any criminals or anyone at all.

My favorite game: Prisonball. In a gym, you throw head-sized Nerf balls at the opposite side. When you hit someone, they go to prison, which is behind your side, so you're sandwiched between. They get out of prison if they hit you. If you catch the ball someone throws at you or is trying to throw to their prison, they go to prison. It seems more interesting than straight dodgeball, but we never really played that.

Four-square is alive and kicking in all the playgrounds I've known.

And dodgeball fucking rocks. Last sport I was ever good at. See, I could never quite throw with any sort of accuracy; but I could dodge like nobody's business. It was lovely. Oh! The best game variant? Was when you had two teams and when someone got hit they went and joined the other team, instead of going to a jail area. There were a great number of balls being used all at once. The game ended once everybody ended up on the same team. And it was clever, you know, because everybody won-- the people who ended up on the big team felt good because they ended up on the side that picked off everyone, and the last few people left on the small side felt good because they had lasted the longest.

Believe it or not, USians are more than capable of understanding UK English. We don't need it translated.

Wrod.

I mean, I've a couple times in private correspondence (with John) had amusing moments of confusion, but they're usually pronunciation stuff (I don't need any more mix-up! I pronounce things ridiculously strangely as it is!) and you're not speaking aloud....

Did other people play Elastics?

We called it that. We also played British Bulldog in co-ed teams, but only on the playground. I was almost always the smallest kid in class, so they put me between the two biggest kids so I wouldn't be an automatic weak link.

I broke my arm playing four square. Brutal game. Of course, I also slashed my foot all to hell playing basketball. I think maybe I'm playing these games wrong.

Um, what's four-square?

t /dumb question

I had a long email acquaintance with a colleague who was at that time at UWisconsin. Only after about 3 months did I speak to him on the phone and realize he was British!

Um, what's four-square?

Sheryl, here:

Hil R. "All Ogle, No Cash -- It's Not Just Annoying, It's Un-American" Feb 27, 2003 10:09:00 am EST

FWIW, I'd never heard of it, either.

Ok. I never played that. Red Rover, yeah. Dodgeball :shudder:, yeah. Variations on jumprope, yeah. Not four-square, though.