Archive for the ‘Bingo’ Category
Posted on February 19, 2009 - by admin
Bingo Lingo for You
An interesting bunching together of the obvious and the metaphorical, bingo terminology probably developed as the situation decreed.
For instance, you are ‘waiting’ if you are waiting for only one more number that completes your bingo pattern. Equally representative is ‘false alarm’ when someone calls ‘Bingo’, thinking they have completed the pattern. It is also grandiosely called ‘social error’, more colloquially ‘bongo’. In contrast to this obvious explanation is the alternative term for ‘waiting’ – ‘cased’. For reasons best known to the originator of the term, you are ‘cased’ for the same reason that you are ‘waiting’.
‘Breaking the Bubble’, meanwhile, is synonymous with a breakthrough. The simplest bingo pattern requires 5 numbers in a single row or column, so you have broken the bubble only when that happens. A very lucky bingo-er might get it in the first five numbers called. Then there are the enthusiasts who call out Bingo when they see the next number on the screen; remember it has to be ‘called out’ before you can yell “Bingo”. These guys are ‘jumping the gun’.
Bingo also has a ‘standard’; translate that to mean that all numbers with the same second digit as the first called number are considered called, including the single digit number in the matrix. ‘Wild numbers’ add a dash of the unknown and the picking of wild numbers is called ‘forwards /backwards’. If the first number picked is 59, then all numbers starting or ending with 5 are considered called numbers, also those ending with 9. There are no numbers that begin with 9, in bingo. The players get to daub out several numbers, in this instance!
Posted on January 29, 2009 - by admin
The Extended Uses of Bingo
Gambling is gambling, the puritans would say, and would strive to keep it under wraps and away from the pure and innocent minds of children. But innovative minds have seen the ‘good’ in the ‘bad’ and in the nineteenth century, bingo was widely used in Germany for educational purposes to teach children spelling, animal names and multiplication tables.
Apparently, teachers in America also use bingo in the classroom. It would be more than an adequate replacement for flash cards. The 5*5 matrix can better represent a network of associations. It seems an ideal method for teaching meanings of related words, especially for those who are learning English as a second language. The matrix might also make a better mind map than those in existence. Teachers of language can really exploit the format to help students generate their own personal thesaurus. And if it can be electronically generated, ‘Bingo’! The colors and bright pictures, not to mention the ease of manufacture, would reinforce the lesson, for sure.
Bingo has actually touched the everyday lives of even non-gamblers. The “bingo logic” of chance numbers is used on the now-popular scratch cards. Each card has a pre-drawn number that is hidden until the card is scratched. When the consumer scratches the card, he ‘matches’ the number against the winning number, and if he is lucky, gets a car or a refrigerator or a free trip or whatever. Even a puritan would not refuse a free trip, would he?
