The Hanover Collaboration

So the other night I was in desperate need of something to do other than editing a chapter of my dissertation and so I decided to organize our Taboo cards. I’ll give you a few moment to laugh…

Done? Ok.

It’s not quite as crazy as it sounds; we had just played Taboo with some friends a few nights before, and I had discovered that the cards were all jumbled up: the colors weren’t together and many were upside down.

Anyway. I happened to look at the rules and noticed a discrepancy between the way I’ve always played (I think) and the actual rules. As far as I know, I’ve always played under the assumption that you can say anything once one of your teammates says it, even if that word is taboo. But that’s not in the rules.

Now I can’t recall: did we argue about this once at Inger’s? If we did, I’ve forgotten. I remember some arguments about the parsing of different parts of speech, but not this. If we never discussed it, where did this rule come from?

The friend I had just played with (for the first time) also used this “if your teammates say it so can you” rule. Or at least they didn’t complain.

Does anyone remember the origins of this rule, or any arguments about its validity back in the days of Inger-Delt?