Editing Telephone game (section)

==Etymology==
===United Kingdom, Australian, and New Zealand usage===
[[Image:Greatwall large.jpg|thumb|The Great Wall, one potential origin of the name "Chinese whispers"]]
In the UK, Australia and New Zealand, the game is typically called "Chinese whispers"; in the UK, this is documented from 1964.<ref name="Marin1">{{cite web |last1=Martin |first1=Gary |title=Phrase Finder: Chinese Whispers |url=https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/chinese-whispers.html |website=Phrase Finder |access-date=27 January 2021 |archive-date=24 January 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210124163920/https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/chinese-whispers.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Strahan1">{{cite journal |last1=Strahan |first1=Lachlan |title='THE LUCK OF A CHINAMAN': IMAGES OF THE CHINESE IN POPULAR AUSTRALIAN SAYINGS |journal=East Asian History |date=June 1992 |issue=3 |page=71 |url=http://www.eastasianhistory.org/sites/default/files/article-content/03/EAH03_03.pdf |access-date=26 January 2021 |publisher=Institute of Advanced Studies Australian National University |archive-date=31 January 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210131143826/http://www.eastasianhistory.org/sites/default/files/article-content/03/EAH03_03.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref>

Various accounts have been suggested for naming the game after the Chinese, but there is no concrete explanation.<ref name="Chu1" /> One suggested account is a widespread British fascination with Chinese culture in the 18th and 19th centuries during the [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]].{{citation needed|date=February 2021}} Another account posits that the game's name stems from the supposed confused messages created when a message was passed verbally from tower to tower along the [[Great Wall of China]].<ref name="Chu1">{{cite book |last1=Chu |first1=Ben |title=Chinese Whispers Why Everything You've Heard About China is Wrong |date=2013 |publisher=Orion |isbn=9780297868460 |page=Introduction |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9CLuryIpHJMC&q=%22Chinese+Whispers%22 |access-date=27 January 2021 |archive-date=25 April 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230425072647/https://books.google.com/books?id=9CLuryIpHJMC&q=%22Chinese+Whispers%22 |url-status=live }}</ref>

Critics who focus on Western use of the word ''Chinese'' as denoting "confusion" and "incomprehensibility" look to the earliest contacts between Europeans and Chinese people in the 17th century, attributing it to a supposed inability on the part of Europeans to understand China's culture and worldview.<ref>{{cite book|last=Dale|first=Corinne H.|title=Chinese Aesthetics and Literature: A Reader|year=2004|publisher=State University of New York Press|location=New York|isbn=0-7914-6022-3|pages=15–25}}</ref> In this view, using the phrase "Chinese whispers" is taken as evidence of a belief that the [[Chinese language]] itself is not understandable.<ref>{{cite book |title=Fabulous Orients: fictions of the East in England, 1662–1785 |url=https://archive.org/details/fabulousorientsf00ball |url-access=limited |isbn=0-19-926733-2 |first=Rosalind |last=Ballaster |authorlink=Rosalind Ballaster |pages=[https://archive.org/details/fabulousorientsf00ball/page/n216 202]–3 |quote=The sinophobic name points to a centuries-old tradition in Europe of representing spoken Chinese as an incomprehensible and unpronounceable combination of sounds. |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |year=2005}}</ref> [[Yunte Huang]], a professor of English at the [[University of California, Santa Barbara]], has said that: "Indicating inaccurately transmitted information, the expression 'Chinese Whispers' carries with it a sense of paranoia caused by espionage, counterespionage, Red Scare, and other war games, real or imaginary, cold or hot."<ref name="Huang1">{{cite journal |last1=Huang |first1=Yunte |date=Spring 2015 |title=Chinese Whispers |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5749/vergstudglobasia.1.1.0066 |url-status=live |journal=Verge: Studies in Global Asias |volume=1 |issue=1 |pages=66–69 |doi=10.5749/vergstudglobasia.1.1.0066 |jstor=10.5749/vergstudglobasia.1.1.0066 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210131010553/https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5749/vergstudglobasia.1.1.0066 |archive-date=31 January 2021 |access-date=25 January 2021|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Usage of the term has been defended as being similar to other expressions such as "[[Greek to me|It's all Greek to me]]" and "[[wikt:double Dutch|Double Dutch]]".<ref>{{cite news |title=MasterChef contestant under fire for using old saying 'Chinese whispers' |url=https://startsat60.com/media/news/chinese-whispers-racist-masterchef-australia |access-date=27 January 2021 |work=Starts at 60 |date=3 June 2018}}</ref> "Double Dutch" as an expression for unintelligibility originated in England as a derogatory smear against [[Holland]], its rival in various wars.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Socolovsky |first=Jerome |date=March 25, 2023 |title=It's Not a 'Chinese' Virus: Let's Avoid Pernicious Shorthands |url=https://training.npr.org/2020/03/25/its-not-a-chinese-virus-or-a-hindu-mob-ways-to-avoid-pernicious-shorthands/ |access-date= |website=NPR}}</ref>

===Alternative names===

As the game is popular among children worldwide, it is also known under various other names depending on locality, such as ''Russian scandal'',<ref>Gryski, Camilla (1998). ''Let's Play: Traditional Games of Childhood'', p.36. Kids Can. {{ISBN|1550744976}}.</ref> ''Russian gossip,'' ''Russian telephone,<ref name="Huang1" />'' ''whisper down the lane'', ''broken telephone'', ''operator'', ''grapevine'', ''gossip'', ''secret message'', ''the messenger game'', and ''pass the message'', among others.<ref name="Blackmore" /> In Turkey, this game is called ''kulaktan kulağa'', which means "from (one) ear to (another) ear". In France, it is called ''téléphone arabe'' ("Arabic telephone") or ''téléphone sans fil'' ("wireless telephone").<ref>{{Cite web|date=13 November 2011|title=Le téléphone arabe : règle du jeu, origine, variantes et idées de phrase|url=https://www.jeuxetcompagnie.fr/animation-enfants-telephone-arabe/|url-status=live|access-date=20 April 2021|website=Jeux et Compagnie|language=fr-FR|quote=Arabic telephone, or the wireless telephone, consists of having a sentence created by the first player and then recited aloud by the last player after circulating rapidly by word of mouth through a line of players. The interest of the game is to compare the final version of the sentence with its initial version. Indeed, with the possible errors of articulation, pronunciation, confusions between words and sounds, the final sentence can be completely different from the initial one.|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120929010652/http://www.jeuxetcompagnie.fr:80/animation-enfants-telephone-arabe/ |archive-date=29 September 2012 }}</ref> In Germany the game is known as ''Stille Post'' ("quiet mail"). In Czechia, it is known as ''tichá pošta'', also meaning "quiet mail". In Poland it is called ''głuchy telefon'', meaning "deaf telephone". In [[Medici]]-era Florence it was called the "game of the ear".<ref name="Murphy1">{{cite book |last1=Murphy |first1=Caroline P. |title=Murder of a Medici Princess |date=2008 |publisher=Oxford University Press, USA |isbn=9780199839896 |page=157 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YkIzZAd_fGUC |access-date=25 January 2021 |archive-date=12 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230512215146/https://books.google.com/books?id=YkIzZAd_fGUC |url-status=live }}</ref>

In North America, the game is known under the name ''telephone''.<ref name="Jonsson et al">{{cite book |last1=Jonsson |first1=Emelie |last2=Carroll |first2=Joseph |last3=Clasen |first3=Mathias |title=Evolutionary Perspectives on Imaginative Culture |date=2020 |isbn=9783030461904 |page=284 |publisher=Springer |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9_35DwAAQBAJ |access-date=25 January 2021 |archive-date=25 April 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230425072649/https://books.google.com/books?id=9_35DwAAQBAJ |url-status=live }}</ref> Alternative names used in the United States include ''broken telephone'', ''gossip'', and ''rumors''.<ref name="Hitchcock & Lovis">{{cite book |last1=Hitchcock |first1=Robert K. |last2=Lovis |first2=William A. |title=Information and Its Role in Hunter-Gatherer Bands |date=31 December 2011 |publisher=Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press |isbn=9781938770203 |page=11 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-WiRDwAAQBAJ |access-date=25 January 2021}}</ref> This North American name is followed in a number of languages where the game is known by the local language's equivalent of  "broken telephone", such in Malaysia as ''telefon rosak,'' in Israel as "[[:he:טלפון שבור|''טלפון שבור'']]" - literally meaning "broken telephone" in Hebrew ("''telefon shavur''"), in Finland as ''rikkinäinen puhelin'', and in Greece as ''halasmeno tilefono'' (χαλασμένο τηλέφωνο) or ''spasmeno tilefono'' (σπασμένο τηλέφωνο).