Vish (game)


In the game of Vish, players compete to find circularity in dictionary definitions. Irish mathematician and physicist, John Lighton Synge, invented the multi-player, refereed game to emphasize the circular reasoning implicit in the defining process of any standard dictionary.

Procedure

  1. Each of the players is given a copy of the same standard dictionary;
  2. The referee gives each a slip of paper with the same word written on each slip—word chosen so that it has synonyms in its definition, but the definition of any synonym does not list a synonym which is the originally assigned word;
  3. At "Go!", each looks up the assigned word, finds a synonym, looks that up, finds a synonym, etc.;
  4. The first player to be led, by this synonymous process, back to the originally assigned word cries "Vish!" and wins the game.