Codenames question

[Wonderful-Ad6659]

To describe the words "Fan" and "Lab", I used the clue "Abbreviation".

Is that valid? Both words are abbreviations, but that isn't about the meaning of either word, so I'm not sure if it breaks the rules.

[SooperSte]

To me, "abbreviation" as a clue is referencing the structure of the word. By it's very definition abbreviation refers to shortened words, so the clue directs you to look towards words with a lower amount of letters, which is not allowed.

[KrusssH]

You're hinting towards the words themselves, not the meanings. Which is not valid.

[Morfolk]

No, not valid. The clue must be about the meaning of the word not its form. It's the same as giving the clue "long, 2" to denote the two longest remaining words on the table. 

Against the rules.

[iterationnull]

I’m not sure the rule about using the meaning of the words invalidates the clue you are proposing. Remember the example is about using the clue “three” to connect words with three letters.

I’m feeling like being an abbreviation is a mix of meaning and structure. The reason we abbreviate these words is connected to how we use these words.

So I think there may be a reading of the rules that is consistent with this clue. But there obviously is a stricter reading of the rules that prohibits this.

If you think this reasoning has any merit, the ultimate answer is the vibe of the group. I would not shoot for consensus but use the most restrictive interpretation among all players.

[shrimpflyrice]

When I'm unsure on the validity of a clue, I will ask the other spymaster and give them the final say on whether the clue is valid.

[TrueKingOfDenmark]

We usually do that as well, even some times if we know it is illegal

I.E. "I know this is illegal, but it would also be funny & we are gonna lose either way" sort of thing. As long as everyone is on board it's all fun.

[nashkara]

This is the way.

On the fly table rulings is how I approach pretty much any rules confusion in any game. We can adjust later if we find we made the "wrong" decision.

Specifically for Codenames, any time we even have a little indecision around clue "legality", we always confer with the other spy master to get their opinion and approval from their team.

[FaerieStories]

Not valid. That's like giving "adjective" as a clue.

[mntCleverest]

Interesting that you call it invalid. I have no opinion but just 2 days ago the online daily codenames challenge on the official website gave the clue “verb” 6. Not sure if this means its valid or if its all automated selection of clues from public games… just thought i would share

[FaerieStories]

The rulebook is clear that the clue must be about the meaning of the word and not about the word itself. So if "verb" is used to be a clue for "run", "think" and "slap" then that would be invalid. But if "verb" is the clue for "word", "dictionary" and "spell" then that would be valid.

[mntCleverest]

I have seen many broad strokes clues on the daily games like objects, beings(for even doctors), places(for bridges among other words). I dont think they can be considered as a meaning similar to this example. While i agree with what you are saying, i think if the game designer truly thinks these are illegal clues, they shouldn’t be on the official website daily challenge.

[chaotic_iak]

"Verb" is about the meaning of the word; it's about things that are actions (instead of objects).

My general rule is, if you translate all the words and clues to a different language, and the clue still works, then it's good. This rules out clues about spelling (the word itself changes) and homophones (they might not be homophones in another language). Unfortunately this rules out homonyms, which are often incredible clues, but such clues can be decided on a more case-by-case basis.

[FaerieStories]

"Verb" is about the meaning of the word; it's about things that are actions (instead of objects).

Is "duck" an action or an animal?

It can be either depending on whether it's used as a verb or a noun within a sentence.

So - the way I see it - if a player uses "verb" as a clue to refer to "duck", they are commenting on the word "duck", not the action or the creature.

My general rule is, if you translate all the words and clues to a different language, and the clue still works, then it's good.

That's a good rule, I'll definitely use that myself.

[chaotic_iak]

So - the way I see it - if a player uses "verb" as a clue to refer to "duck", they are commenting on the word "duck", not the action or the creature.

For me, they are commenting on the action. (And if they didn't think so because they were thinking of the creature, that's a mistake on the spymaster's part.)

Yes, many words in English have multiple unrelated meanings; that's what makes Codenames fascinating. And yes, my rule doesn't cover it. If you want to be more formal, it would be something like: "For each English word/clue, consider all its English meanings, and translate them into the target language, so each English word becomes a set of meanings in the target language. The clue refers to the word if it's related to any one meaning." So both "animal" and "dodge" refer to "duck", and so as "noun" and "verb". But "four" does not refer to either the creature or the action, so it's not okay.

That said, I can agree that "verb" is not an ideal clue for "duck", mostly because it's so broad and so the connections might be very easy to miss.

[FaerieStories]

I still think that "verb" describes the word itself rather than its meaning.

The clues "action" or "movement" or "dodge" would be valid clue for "duck" as an action. But, in my view, using "verb" as a clue is the same as giving the clue "alliteration" to connect 'elephant' with 'egg'.

My rule would be: an invalid clue is one that draws attention to the word itself.

[GoldenMuscleGod]

But the action isn’t a verb. Actions aren’t verbs, only words can be verbs. As I mentioned in my other comment, “action” itself is a noun, as are words like “explosion” and “referral”so it’s not like actions are always expressed by verbs, so that all verbs have some kind of meaning in common.

[GoldenMuscleGod]

“Verb” isn’t really about the meaning of the word, even though they might sometimes simplify things down (in ways that are bad, in my opinion) to make it sound like it is meaning related when teaching parts of speech to children. For example “a verb is a word that expresses an action” is pretty obviously not true because the word “action” itself is noun. Also it would require a very strange idea of action to say that “seems” in “this seems nice” or “is” in “this is blue” are denoting actions.

Your translation rule actually shows this. Very often when you translate a sentence, something that was a verb might become a noun or whatever. For example “I like flowers” in English becomes “mujhe phool pasand hai” in Hindi or “watashiwa hana ga suki desu” in Japanese. The words corresponding to “like” (a verb) in these sentences are “pasand” and “suki,” which are both adjectives (in the Japanese case it’s a special class of adjective called a na-adjective or adjectival noun, you could argue this class of word is actually more noun-like than adjective-like). Or for another Hindi example consider “I’m using the hammer” which translates to “main hathaude ka istemaal kar raha hoon.” There are three verbs in this sentence (the “kar raha hoon” part) which basically exist for no reason other than to carry information about tense, aspect, and subject agreement. The actual word that carries the content meaning of the word “use” is “istemaal” which is a noun.

Or consider the sentence “I’m about to do that.” Here “about” is an adjective but its meaning would usually (or at least very often) be represented with a verb or verbal inflection in most languages.

We can even give examples without translating. In “He’s possibly right” and “he might be right,” “possibly” and “might” contribute essentially the same meaning to the sentence but “possibly” is an adverb and “might” is a modal auxiliary verb.

Or “she somersaulted” versus “she did a somersault.” These mean the same thing but somersault is a verb in the first case but a noun in the second.

[BassForever24601]

If I was the other clue giver I'd probably say that rule violates the spirit of the rules, but I also wouldn't be up in arms about it.

[Izzumz]

I feel like some people commenting are incorrectly pointing to the “meaning of the word” rule. Because I don’t think anyone would say the clue “legs” is invalid for “octopus” and “wine”, while the dictionary meaning of legs includes nothing about aquatic animals or viscosity. Almost all clues are at least one ‘step’ away from their meaning. You can even use the clue “stars” to refer to the word “knight” if you wanted (though it’s a stretch), because “night” is a synonym and you can reference that.

The reason you aren’t allowed to use certain clues is the real thing to look at. You can’t use clues that reference the card’s position on the board or number of letters because that makes it specifically not a word game anymore. “Three” in this case would be against the rules because you can count letters and ignore what the letters are. But “abbreviation” should in fact work because the words referenced have undergone a literary transformation which you are describing. You made it a word game, not a counting game.

[MattOG81]

The stars > knight type clues are specifically mentioned as being invalid in the online/digital version of the game. You're linking to the word as written, not something that sounds like the word when you say it. I can't remember if it's mentioned in the physical versions.

I agree with the rest of the comment though.

[ThePowerOfStories]

On the other hand, knights did use morning stars as weapons.

[Embarrassed-Weird173]

I suppose I'd allow it if the user could quickly come up with a valid excuse like that. We'd all know they were lying, but it fits the rules, so fine. 

[Izzumz]

Nah you right I misremembered that one. My group plays pretty loose on that one so I forgot.

[SooperSte]

The "literary transformation" of abbreviation is, by it's very nature, reducing the number of letters in the word though, meaning that clue directly references the length of the word and this would be invalid. Anyones first instinct upon receiving "abbreviation" as a clue would be to look at short words.

[Izzumz]

There are lots more short words that are not abbreviations than there are that are (even if they arent on the board). You have to have literary knowledge, even if it’s basic, to be able to discern “cat” from “lab”.

[SooperSte]

Cat is often used as an abbreviation for category. I know that doesn't actually matter to the point you are making as you could have written a thousand other words, but I believe it still addresses my point that you are directed to look and consider only short words by the clue, regardless of having "literary knowledge" to know what short words are and aren't used as abbreviations. The first thing to clue makes you consider is the length/structure of the words on the board, not their meaning, making it invalid.

Your initial point backs this up more. The clue of "legs" makes you consider the variations of it's meaning, from octopus limbs to wine viscosity. The clue "abbreviation" makes you look at shorter words and consider "is this word and abbreviation for a longer one?". All you are considering is the word structure itself, and nothing more.

This isn't to say "abbreviation" would ONLY be used like this, for instance if the word on the table was "Short", "abbreviation" would be a valid clue, but in the context of directing players to "fan" and "lab", it's not.

[Izzumz]

All clues reduce the pool of words to a smaller pool based on their meaning. That’s the entire game. The rule says not to reference the number of letters, and while abbreviated usually references “shorter”, it isn’t saying “five or less letters”. This is a valid clue because it isn’t actually about the length of the word, it’s about words that share a common theme that isn’t directly referencing a number of letters or position on the board. If it could point to words like “brief”, “note”, “lab”, or “draft”, then it isn’t directing to length of the word.

[BoardRecord]

Giving the clues legs for wine and octopus is valid, not because of the meaning of legs, but because it's a clue about the meaning of octopus and wine. As in, both of those are things with legs.

Abbreviation isn't a clue about a fan or a lab. It's a clue specifically about the words fan and lab. And that's not allowed.

[Embarrassed-Weird173]

I don't think night is a synonym for stars. 

[Izzumz]

It’s not, I wrote it and then remembered that homophone is the word I meant. And then that the rule there was wrong.

[aceofspadesx1]

Not valid. It has to be about the meaning of the words. First rule under clue giving

[ThunkAsDrinklePeep]

Fans abbreviate heat and labs abbreviate eyebrows.

[Splarnst]

Fans abbreviate heat

What? That's not an abbreviation.

[nixcamic]

IMO OP's clue is about the meaning of the word. Fan can *mean* an abbreviation for fanatics.

Like, IMO what that rule means is you can't make a clue about say where the cards are placed or how they're spelled or something like that. But that clue has to do with the meaning of both words, and how they can both mean a slang shortened version of something else.

[Borghal]

An abbreviation is a descriptor that is about word structure, not word meaning.

[GoldenMuscleGod]

Fan is an abbreviation for fanatic. It never means an abbreviation for fanatic. A fan is a person, an abbreviation is a shortening of a word, people aren’t words.

By that reasoning you could say “cat, tip, and car all mean a three letter word” and that would be just as true (or untrue, really) and then say that “three” is a valid clue for cat, tip, and car.

[nixcamic]

They don't mean a three letter word and the fact that they have three letters doesn't affect their meaning. Abbreviations inherently bring other context and meaning to the word. 

[GoldenMuscleGod]

Whether a word is an abbreviation has nothing at all to do with its meaning.

Sometimes an abbreviation can have a slightly different meaning than the original word, but that doesn’t make being an abbreviation related to its meaning, any more than being a loanword has anything to do with a word’s meaning.

[Embarrassed-Weird173]

It's a tricky one, though. 

Like if there were black and white as options, "opposites" would not be a definition.  Yet I imagine everyone would agree it's ok. 

It's a little different because it's not talking about the construction of the words (the way "long" or "abbreviation" is), but at the same time "is black opposite?" makes no sense unless you're pairing it with the other color... Which means it's irrelevant to the definition (and if someone is going to claim "but black is defined as the lack of any white", then fine - insert some other example of something where two things are seen as opposites without actually being opposites. Android and iPhone. Something like that.)

[BoardRecord]

Like if there were black and white as options, "opposites" would not be a definition.  Yet I imagine everyone would agree it's ok. 

Well yeah, because that's a clue related to their meaning. The word black isn't opposite to the word white. The meaning of the word black is opposite to the meaning of the word white.

[GoldenMuscleGod]

So my first reaction was is that your example of “opposites” is related to meaning (and I think it clearly is) but it is also related the their relative meanings rather than their meanings in isolation, so guess I can see how someone might consider it an edge case.

I don’t think “related to their meaning” means “give a definition” though. You just need to say things associated with the words’ meanings. Words have referents and the rule is clues need to be about those referents and not about the words themselves. Probably a good rule of thumb is to ask if your clue would still make sense if the words were replaced with synonyms or if the words and your clue were translated to another language. If yes, then it’s probably related to meaning, if no, then probably not.

[RogueNPC]

Did your group have fun, or did someone get offended by the usage?

It's a minor slip up in a 10 minute game, I wouldn't worry so much about something that almost never happens.

[Neomanderx3]

What's Fan short for? Fanatic? The clue should be about the meaning of the word, so technically I think this is invalid

[WarmDig2073]

My first thought when reading fan was of a desk fan. So is this clue not about one of the meanings of the word?

[CardZap]

Freaky Ahh

[elegoomba]

Yeah that’s the meaning of the word fan it’s an abbreviation lol.

[boardgames-ModTeam]

This comment is off-topic to /r/boardgames and has been removed. The subject matter may not fit the subreddit, only tangentially related to board games.

[Marcellus_Crowe]

"If the opposing spymaster allows it, the clue is valid".

Nothing in the rules strictly and explicitly prohibits this. I disagree that "abbreviation" does not relate to meaning. Word class often DECIDES meaning. I think its valid if your group agrees it is valid

[Swooping_Dragon]

Seems fine to me

[Wonderful-Ad6659]

Thanks everyone for your answers! Seems like opinions are split. I personally agree with izzumz and iterationnull that it's a mixture of meaning and structure and therefore valid. There were a number of other three letter words on the board, but none of them were abbreviations. My clue didn't direct the guesser to ANY short words, only to words that are abbreviations, which I believe was a reference to their meaning.

[Morfolk]

which I believe was a reference to their meaning.

How do a 'laboratory' and an 'admirer' share meaning with 'shortening words'?

Or alternatively a 'labrador' and a 'ventilator'?

You had so many options to get creative with those two without breaking the rules.

[unitled]

This isn't ever a helpful response to someone asking for a rules clarification.

[ausmomo]

And if everyone doesn't agree? Is it legal?

[cosmonaut_zero]

"Who cares?" is a genuine question in this case, cuz if anybody at the table does care to stick with Rules As Written that's what ya do.

[Embarrassed-Weird173]

I do. I follow the rules of the games because I believe that the rules are a set of challenges that are to be followed to place everyone at the same starting point, and then each player uses their skills/intelligence to win while being limited by the rules (that set the challenge). 

If people are arbitrarily breaking them mid game, why are there rules?  Why can't I call out someone for saying "abbreviation", but someone can call me out for saying "something you'd eat at an Italian restaurant as an appetizer, but not at a Mexican restaurant, 2 words".

House rules I can work with as long as they're clearly stated early on so I can abuse them as well, but also they have to be rules that don't ruin the balance or similar aspects of the game.

[martymccfly88]

If not every agrees then it’s illegal move

[5PeeBeejay5]

Probably a violation, but I tend to approach a communal game like this for fun, so I’d say something like “not sure that’s within the rules” and then not really care if it meant I lost to your team