The game A What is traditionally played as follows:
Players are sitting in a circle. One player who has two objects that she has named starts the game. She passes one object to the left, engaging in the traditional “a what” exchange.
Player A turns to player B and says “I give you a “frabjous” (or whatever else player A decided to call one of her objects). Player B then turns back to player A, hands the frabjous back, and says “a what?” Player A then returns the frabjous back to B and again says “a frabjous.” Upon which B takes the object from A, saying “O, a frabjous!”
B then turns to C, saying “I give you a frabjous. C then turns to B and asks “A What?” And B, as if struck by sudden amnesia, passes the frabjous back to A, and asks “A What?”
A, turning B-wards, says, once again, “a frabjous.” B, now reminded, turns C-wards, and says “a frabjous.” C, taking the frabjous from B, then says “O, a frabjous.”
C now turns to D, handing D the frabjous, saying “I give you a frabjous.” D, of course, turns back to C, and asks “a what?” C then hands the frabjous back to B, again asking “a what?” B then gives the frabjous to A, also with the “a what” question. A turns to B, returning the frabjous to B, saying “a frabjous” B then to C, also with the frabjous. D then exclaims “O, a frabjous!” And then turns to E, saying “I give you a frabjous.”
Each time the frabjous is passed, the “a what” has to go all the way back to the person who named the object, and all the way back to the person who is now receiving the object. Once the first object has been started, the object-originating player launches the second object in the opposite direction. All is orderly, in a silly kind of way, until one player gets both objects, and much hilarity ensues, as somewhat illustrated here (in Hebrew, where the frabjous becomes a “Me,” the second object “Moo,” and, with the Hebrew word for “what” being “Ma,” even more madness ensues):
There is, however, another A What. This one even sillier and, if possible, more fun. In this version, nobody gets laughed at/with because they find themselves confused and bemused. Instead, everyone is bemused and confused at the same time.
Again, everybody sits in a circle. This time, they each have a thing in their hand (anything, really: a shoe, a set of keys, a piece of candy) and have given their thing a name (any name, really: a Fred, a Pizza, a Furblick).
When the game starts, everyone turns to the person on their right, and says “I give you a….” (“….” being the name they decided to give their thing).
For example, let’s call one person “Person Number One” and the person to Person Number One’s right “Person Number Two.” And let’s say that Person Number One has named her thing “Furblik” and Person Number Two has named his thing “Gumdrop.”
Person #1 simply turns to person #2 and says “I give you a Furblik,” while, at the same time, Person #2 has turned to the person on his right, saying “I give you a Gumdrop,” while #3 is telling #4 “I give you a Schintzel,” and on and on.
If you think about, it would seem that if everybody is so focused on telling somebody else what their thing is called, nobody would be able to hear what anybody is telling them. And you’d be almost exactly right.
Which almost explains why everyone then turns back to the person on their left, and says “a what?” (Person #3 saying “a what” to person #2 who is saying “a what” to Person #1). And then, almost immediately, the people who named the thing then turn back to the people on their right and say: “a “…” (Our friend #1 saying “a Furblik” to #2 while #2 is saying Gumdrop to #3 while #4 is saying Schnitzel to #4 who is saying something else to #5 and on and on and also on).
This is repeated three times, and on the third time, everyone finally gives their thing to the people on the right, who must, upon receiving the thing, even though in all likelihood they have close to no idea what anyone said to anyone, say “Oh, a …!” (the “…” being whatever they think they actually heard the thing being called.
The goal, purportedly, is to pass all the objects completely around the circle, without changing the name originally ascribed to them. The actuality is that it is nothing short of miraculous when any of the objects retain their name.
There is a recommended technique. If you were, for the sake of argument, person #2, and were addressing person #3, telling that person what your what is called, you would be, at the same time, leaning towards person #1, hoping that, despite the relative impossibility of it all, you might actually, by the third time, have heard what that person said.
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This is one of my favorite games. The 2nd version has been the only version I’ve known ’til now. We don’t even use funny names, we just use the common name. I particularly like using a “watch” so it will go something like this:
Person 1: “This is a watch.”
Person 2: “A What?”
Person 1: “A watch.”
Person 2: “A what?”
Person 1: “A watch.”
Person 2: “Oh! A watch.”
Then 2 passes the watch on to 3, while 1 passes something different to 2, and so on. It is so rare that one object gets back to the original giver because the chaos ends up in stitches just after a few rounds. There’s a rhythm to the chanting that escalates as the group gets more excited. It’s just a fun fun thing to do. Thanks for sharing!