[Jonas Richter]

The new issue is now online: https://content.sciendo.com/view/journals/bgs/14/1/bgs.14.issue-1.xml

Here’s the article list:

Donald Duck Holiday Game: A numerical analysis of a Game of the Goose role-playing variant  by W.J.A. van Heeswijk

Wrested from Oblivion: General Ludwik Mierosławski’s Strategy Game Rediscovered  by Oliver Heyn

Turkish Great Chess and Chinese Whispers: Misadventures of a Chess Variant  by Georgi Markov and Stefan Härtel

The Sellers of Catan: The Impact of the Settlers of Catan on the United States Leisure and Business Landscape, 1995-2019  by Erica Price

Simulating Saratoga: How Saratoga-Themed Board Games Function as Experiential Historiography  by Maurice Suckling

Remembering Yugoslavia: Board Game Monopoly and Cultural Memory  by Zala Pavšič

Board Games Before Ur?  by Thierry Depaulis

 

[Jonas Richter]

Yes, the usual assumption is that the word “teetotum” or other early forms “tetotum” & “T totum” derive from the letter T shown on one of the spinning die’s faces being put in front of “totum”. The T would originally have been for “totum” (the whole). A quote by Strutt in 1801 demonstrates that letters on the dice/spinners represented English words by then. Dice marked with either T or P with a number (P1 = pay one, T2 = take two, etc.) are a younger development I think. Anyway, I don’t think we can be sure what people assumed the T to mean when the word “totum” was prefixed with it.

That would make it a rather pleonastic word. It also creates a distinct sound aesthetic; probably a good thing for a toy.

The oldest reference with the T-prefix, given by the OED, is this:

1720   Hist. Life & Adventures D. Campbell (1841) 50   A very fine ivory T totum, as children call it.

“teetotum, n.1.” OED Online, http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/198596.

Further 18th century references (not found in the OED):

• 1750 in “The Old Lady in Her Tantarums”, p. 10: …playing thus at T. Totum, Leap Frog, and Laugh and lye down…
• 1768 in various texts presumably all relating the same story, “The Trial of Frederick Calvert, Esq; Baron of Baltimore … for a Rape…”, p. 11; in the Tyburn Chronicle, p. 240; in “The Universal Magazine of Knowledge and Pleasure”, p. 202; “The Scots Magazine” p. 202: …play at tetotum…
• 1770 in the notes to “Ancient Scottish Poems”, p. 301 and 316

It may be worth pointing out that in the 1830s advocates for total abstinence from intoxicating beverages coined words like “teetotal”, “teetotalism”, apparently to emphasize how very much totally abstinent from alcohol you should be. Late in the 19th century, “teetotum” could also mean a “teetotal” or temperance restaurant.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 4 months ago by Jonas Richter.

[Jonas Richter]

Okay, couldn’t stop myself from “digging” around a bit online. I’m trying to get a better undertanding of historical spinning dice (with pips/ numbers on its faces as well as dice with letters, for put & take).

Here’s an archaeological paper mentioning a spinning die (Kreiselwürfel) found in a cesspit in Höxter (North Rhine-Westphalia). The cesspit is dated to the 14th to 1st half of the 15th cent. The die is made from bone, a hexagonal prism with a spindle, its faces showing 1-6 pips. König, the author of the paper, writes:

Der Fund stellt einen frühen Beleg dieser seit dem 16. Jahrhundert beliebten Spielwürfelvariante dar. (The object is an early example of this dice variant which was popular since the 16th century. – transl. JR)

Andreas König: Hinterhöfe der Macht – Ausgrabungen am romanischen Brückenmarkt in Höxter. ARCHÄOLOGIE IN WESTFALEN-LIPPE 2017 (2018), 90-94, here p. 92 (quote) and 93 (image). DOI: https://doi.org/10.11588/aiw.0.0.68917

And I guess it’s helpful to also post this to the mailing list. I will do that later.

[Jonas Richter]

Hi everybody,

since “game studies” often just refers to the study of digital games, and I’m particularly interested in analog games, I’m actually not sure if I’m in the right place. (Maybe making the group description explicit in this regard is an option?)

My academic background is the study of religion, and German language and literature (particularly the medieval period). I now work on a dictionary of Middle High German. But occasionally there’s spare time left for research on games, like the early modern Game of Seven (often called “Glückshaus”), or the card game Karnöffel, or the history of cubic dice with five blank sides (Schimmelwürfel, farinet, farinacci).

If your focus is on digital games, that’s perfectly fine of course. I might lurk anyway. 😉

[Author]

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