PASS THE BARTLETT'S
Credit: GAMES Magazine
May/June 1981
W. S.

"Either _____ is obsolete or men are," said R. Buckminster Fuller. What word should fill in the blank?
     This question, posed at a party by games master David Griswold, began an amusing and thought-provoking game that added some spirited play to the gathering.
     The rules are simple: one person reads a quotation from Bartlett's Familiar Quotations (or any book of quotations on hand), omitting an important word. Players get one guess at the missing word. When all guesses have been made, the correct answer is revealed and the book is passed to the person who came up with the correct (or most clever) answer. Guesses that sound best are often far off the mark; sometimes they even improve on the original quotation. In the Buckminster Fuller quote, probably only one word fits the full meaning of the line - war.
    Before you play the game, here are a few more quotations for you to consider:

1. I love the idea of there being two _____, don't you?
    James Thurber

2. It is completely _____. That is why it is so interesting.
    Agatha Christie

3. Everything is _____as long as it is happening to someone else.
    Will Rogers

4. _____ are our most valuable resource.
    Herbert Hoover

5. Let me say.......that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of _____.
    Che Guevara

6. _____ are the touchstones of our characters.
    Henry David Thoreau

7. I can resist everything except _____.
    Oscar Wilde

8. I never loved anyone the way I loved _____.
    Mae West

Answers:

1. Sexes
2. Unimportant
3. Funny
4. Children
5. Love
6. Dreams
7. Temptation
8. Myself