Do you bluff often?

11 common phrases derived from board games and card games

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Since most games are composed of rules and repeated actions, it is only natural that certain phrases are repeated throughout the gameplay. The metaphorical potential of some of these phrases has led to them becoming part of our everyday language. Do you use any of these?

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This phrase, often used to describe a situation in which a goal is almost reached, comes from an old parlor game where the participant would roll two dice, hoping to get a seven and win a cigar.

If the resulting number were two fours, the croupier would say, "Oh, you rolled two fours? Close, but no cigar."

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In the game of Monopoly, a "Get Out of Jail" card is a useful commodity to have, since it saves you from spending time in the can, and it can be used whenever you want.

In the real world, when someone is said to "have a Get Out of Jail Card", this person can get away with things that would normally get them in trouble.

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This is a phrase often used to describe a suspicious statement, and it has its origin in the game Apples and Werewolves, where a character might say this line after noticing something suspicious.

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The phrase "drawing thin" usually refers to a situation in which your options are getting worse and worse every time.

This phrase originates from a Poker hand with very low but still feasible odds of winning.

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The phrase "move a knight" comes from the ancient game of Chess, and it refers to the action of moving one’s horse figure, the knight, into action.

In the real world, the saying "move a knight" is commonly used to describe an instance when someone made a bold and unexpected move.

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In a card game, an ante is the amount of money one puts on the table as his or her bet at the start of a game.

In the real world, this phrase is used to describe the action of paying the money for something.

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Within card games like Poker, the act of "showing your hands" implies laying down the cards and revealing them to the other players.

In the real world, showing one’s hand means being honest and open about one’s intentions.

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In the board game Catan, a situation can arise where a participant cannot access resources despite being the nearest one to them, while the other participants can.

Similarly, in the real world, the expression "to be Cataned" is used to describe the instance where someone is deprived of accessing resources despite his or her proximity to them.

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In the world of card games, "overplaying one’s hand" means thinking that one has better cards than the ones actually in possession.

Likewise, in the real world, overplaying one’s hand describes the action of overestimating one’s strength.

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When playing a card game, players often show their honesty by keeping their hands above the table, which was originally called "board".

In the real world, doing things above board means acting transparently and straightforwardly.

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When playing a card game, deciding when and how to execute each movement is paramount to your success. This is called "playing your cards right".

Similarly, in the real world, to play your cards right means to make the best of your opportunities and resources in order to achieve your goal.

WHAT IS A LED ZEPPELIN?

What are the Dead Grateful about? 10 unusual band names explained

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Due to constant repetition, the names of successful bands become household names. But, when we stop to think about them, some of those names are downright strange or, at the very least, curious. What is an Aerosmith? Or a Supertramp? Find the answers to these and a few other existential questions by scrolling through the following stories.

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In case anyone wondered, The Ramones were not a band of brothers named Ramone. The name of the band was first suggested by Dee Dee, after learning that Paul McCartney would check into hotels under the fake name 'Paul Ramon'. He convinced the other members to adopt the last name, and The Ramones came to be.

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There are two versions of the origin of Alice Cooper’s name. In the early days, the story was that Alice Cooper was a spirit the band contacted via an Ouija board.

But in later years, the frontman himself has said that they came up with a name that could be someone’s grandmother – which made it a perfectly unorthodox match for a bunch of cross-dressing shock rockers.

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If the rumors are correct, Jimmy Page (guitarist and frontman for what would become Led Zeppelin), Jeff Beck (guitarist for The Yardbirds, a band Page had been part of), Keith Moon (drummer for The Who), and John Entwistle (bass player for The Who) came up with the idea of forming a supergroup, but Moon suggested this would "go over like a lead balloon".

Sometime later, Page remembered this expression and, after swapping "balloon" for "zeppelin", decided to drop the "a" in "lead" to make it clear how the word should be pronounced: Led Zeppelin.

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Billy Gibbons, the guitar player for ZZ Top came up with the band’s name thanks to his obsession with blues music. He thought of combining the names of two bluesmen: Z.Z. Hill and B.B. King. But when ZZ King didn’t sound all that great, Gibbons made the slight shift to ZZ Top.

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There are many bands whose names are literary references to authors and their works. Uriah Heep got their name from a character in Charles Dickens’ 'David Copperfield.' Uriah Heep was a man untrustworthy and unlikable in the extreme.

As guitarist Mick Box said "We were formed on the 100th anniversary of Charles Dickens. There was publicity all over London to celebrate his birthday."

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Being the American answer to The Beatles, the Monkees needed a moniker similar to that of the Fab Four. Accordingly, they mispronounced the name of a creature from the natural world just as the Beatles had done in the first place.

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Another legendary group that got its name from a book is Supertramp. The British art-rockers got their name from W. H. Davies’ 1908 memoir 'The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp,' in which the Welsh writer details his wandering early days.

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The fact that the Grateful Dead came up with their band name while under the influence surprises no one. Perusing a folklore dictionary, Jerry Garcia discovered the term, which related to the soul of an unburied dead person expressing karmic gratitude to someone who arranged for their eventual burial.

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Not many bands are named after the drummer and the bass player. But Fleetwood Mac is. The outfit was christened after the names of Mick Fleetwood and John McVie. This was a ploy devised by guitarist Peter Green to keep them in the band. And it worked; 5 decades and countless lineups later, the pair is the only remaining members from the ‘60s.

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The curious name of this legendary hard rock outfit originated, according to drummer Joey Kramer, while he and his girlfriend were listening to Harry Nilsson’s "Aerial Ballet" and the couple began toying with cool band names that had the word "aero" in them.

He liked how "Aerosmith" sounded, but the band he was in at the time didn’t. So it was shelved until Kramer joined Joe Perry and Steven Tyler’s group. The convincing was done and the rest is history.