Ludemes
Cameron Browne
David Parlett mentions it in passing in The Oxford History of Board
Games (p9) but he thinks it was first proposed by Pierre Berloquin.
Can anyone point me to the reference in which it was originally
coined?
Cameron
Thierry Depaulis
I too thought it was Berloquin, but I failed to find it in his classic
books 'Le Livre des Jeux' (1970), '100 Jeux de cartes classiques'
(1975), '100 Jeux de table' (1976).
Finally it seems it is Alain Borveau (d.2002) in his essay 'Anatomie
d'un jeu de cartes: l'aluette ou la vache' (Nantes, 1977), where he
writes (p.18):
"Ceci nous amène à rappeler que la règle d'un jeu de cartes est faite
de la combinaison d'un certain nombe de règles-types somme toute
élémentaires et que ce n'est que cette combinaison qui confère à un
type de jeu son originalité. L'aluette n'échappe pas à cette loi. Son
intérêt réside dans le fait de les « ludèmes » qui la régissent sont à
la fois spectaculaires et peu courants."
L'aluette is a card game played in the West of France (the area of
Nantes, some parts of Brittany, the Vendée) with Spanish-suited
playing cards. It has indeed very special rules.
I think this is where "ludème" was coined. Alain was quite impressed
by the then fashionable structuralist theories which were based on
linguistics. Ludème is clearly influenced by words in "-emes", like
phoneme, grapheme, morpheme..., etc.
It can be defined as a "standard rule" (règle-type), a basic element
in the "system" that is a game rule. The trick-taking element in a
card game or the leap capture in a board game can be qualified
"ludemes".
Cheers,
Thierry Depaulis
Cameron Browne
> Finally it seems it is Alain Borveau (d.2002) in his essay 'Anatomie
> d'un jeu de cartes: l'aluette ou la vache' (Nantes, 1977), where he
> writes (p.18):
>
> "Ceci nous amène à rappeler que la règle d'un jeu de cartes est faite
> de la combinaison d'un certain nombe de règles-types somme toute
> élémentaires et que ce n'est que cette combinaison qui confère à un
> type de jeu son originalité. L'aluette n'échappe pas à cette loi. Son
> intérêt réside dans le fait de les « ludèmes » qui la régissent sont à
> la fois spectaculaires et peu courants."
Many thanks! That's great information.
Regards,
Cameron
Thierry Depaulis
> Many thanks! That's great information.
>
> Regards,
> Cameron
Sorry! Reading again my post I realise I did a mistake. The last
sentence should read:
> >Son intérêt réside dans le fait QUe les « ludèmes » qui la régissent
> >sont à la fois spectaculaires et peu courants."
Thierry
Bill Taylor
> linguistics. Ludème is clearly influenced by words in "-emes", like
> phoneme, grapheme, morpheme..., etc.
Not to mention "meme", OC!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bill Taylor W.Ta...@math.canterbury.ac.nz
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Memes don't exist - pass it on.
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PierreBerloquin
l'occasion de la mise en ordre de mes livres sur les jeux de cartes et les
jeux de table mais je ne parviens pas à retrouver un texte dans lequel je
l'aurais mentionné. Donc pour l'instant Alain Borvo est le seul auteur
connu à l'avoir écrit mais son texte me semble bien tardif.
Il faudrait voir sur quoi Parlett se fondait.
A suivre.
David Parlett
<7605fe0f2add1521...@localhost.talkaboutgaming.com>,
PierreBerloquin <pie...@berloquin.com> writes
encountered the term ludeme and its attribution, since denied, to Pierre
Berloquin. At the time I didn't think much of it, and on the first
occasion that I mentioned it in print (in my Oxford Guide to (aka
History of) Card Games) I did so only in passing and with a regrettably
rude dismissal of it as "eminently dispensable". At the time, in fact, I
thought it rather pretentious. By some stroke of irony, I later found
reference to the word somewhere on the internet with a mistaken
attribution to me, presumably from a reader of the Oxford book. Since
then, however, I have found myself using it unconsciously, even almost
against my will.
If, then, Monsieur Berloquin now asks on what authority I base my use of
the word, the answer is simply the purely pragmatic one of usefulness.
It is so useful that it doesn't even need to be defined. The area in
which it strikes me as most useful is that of evidently related features
common to games of differing and otherwise unrelated types. For example,
the game of Losing Chess on one hand, and card games of the Hearts
family on the other, exemplify the concept of reversing the object of
play from positive to negative. The reversal concept is a typical
ludeme, in that it can be applied to many other games of other types. In
the realm of card games specifically, another ludeme is that of the Jack
as some kind of a trickster figure, ranging from the eponymous card in
the ancient game of Karnöffel, to the card that scores 2 for his heels
or 1 for his nob at Cribbage, to the most significant card at All Fours
(Pitch, etc), and eventually to its complete conversion into the Joker
of Euchre and Poker and subsequent wild card of Rummy.
If a definition of the term is required, I can do more than to
characterise it as a type of meme specific to the field of games. As for
the definition of meme, see Richard Dawkins, who invented it, or the
relevant Wikipedia article. In brief, I do not claim to invented the
word ludeme; I not only credited it to its presumed inventor when I
first used it but have since made enquiries as to its origin through
other contacts in France (albeit without success); and I make no claim
to its universal indispensability. I use it because I find it useful,
and its meaning has always seemed plain enough to me from its context.
What more can one ask of a word?
--
David Parlett
For books and games visit http://www.davpar.com