Hangman is a

guessing game Guessing is the act of drawing a swift conclusion, called a guess, from data directly at hand, which is then held as probable or tentative, while the person making the guess (the guesser) admittedly lacks material for a greater degree of certaint ...

for two or more players. One player thinks of a

word A word is a basic element of language that carries semantics, meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no consensus among linguist ...

phrase In grammar, a phrasecalled expression in some contextsis a group of words or singular word acting as a grammatical unit. For instance, the English language, English expression "the very happy squirrel" is a noun phrase which contains the adject ...

, or sentence and the other(s) tries to guess it by suggesting letters or

numbers A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The most basic examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers can ...

within a certain number of guesses. Originally a

paper-and-pencil game Paper-and-pencil games or paper-and-pen games (or some variation on those terms) are games that can be played solely with paper and pencil, pencils (or other writing implements), usually without erasing. They may be played to pass the time, as ...

, there are now electronic versions.

History

Though the origins of the game are unknown, a variant is mentioned in a book of children's games assembled by Alice Gomme in 1894 called Birds, Beasts, and Fishes. This version lacks the image of a hanged man, instead relying on keeping score as to the number of attempts it took each player to fill in the blanks. A version which incorporated hanging imagery was described in a 1902 article in ''

The Philadelphia Inquirer ''The Philadelphia Inquirer'', often referred to simply as ''The Inquirer'', is a daily newspaper headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Founded on June 1, 1829, ''The Philadelphia Inquirer'' is the third-longest continuously operating da ...

'', which stated that it was popular at "White Cap" parties where guests would wear "white peaked caps with masks".

Overview

The word to guess is represented by a row of

dash The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen ...

es representing each

letter Letter, letters, or literature may refer to: Characters typeface * Letter (alphabet), a character representing one or more of the sounds used in speech or none in the case of a silent letter; any of the symbols of an alphabet * Letterform, the g ...

number A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The most basic examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers can ...

of the

. Rules may permit or forbid

proper noun A proper noun is a noun that identifies a single entity and is used to refer to that entity ('' Africa''; ''Jupiter''; '' Sarah''; ''Walmart'') as distinguished from a common noun, which is a noun that refers to a class of entities (''continent, ...

s (such as names, places, or brands) or other types of words (such as

slang A slang is a vocabulary (words, phrases, and linguistic usages) of an informal register, common in everyday conversation but avoided in formal writing and speech. It also often refers to the language exclusively used by the members of pa ...

). If the guessing player suggests a letter which occurs in the word, the other player writes it in all its correct positions. If the suggested letter does not occur in the word, the other player adds (or alternatively, removes) one element of a hanged

stick figure Stick Figure is an American reggae and dub band founded in 2005. The group has released eight full-length albums and one instrumental album (Prince Fatty Presents), all of which were written and produced by frontman and self-taught multi-instr ...

as a

tally mark Tally marks, also called hash marks, are a form of numeral used for counting. They can be thought of as a unary numeral system. They are most useful in counting or tallying ongoing results, such as the score in a game or sport, as no interm ...

. Generally, the game ends once the word is guessed, or if the stick figure is complete—signifying that all guesses have been used. The player guessing the word may, at any time, attempt to guess the whole word. If the word is correct, the game is over and the guesser wins. Otherwise, the other player may choose to penalize the guesser by adding an element to the diagram. If the guesser makes enough incorrect guesses to allow the other player to complete the diagram, the guesser loses. However, the guesser can also win by guessing all the letters that appear in the word, thereby completing the word, before the diagram is completed.

Variants

As the name of the game suggests, the

diagram A diagram is a symbolic Depiction, representation of information using Visualization (graphics), visualization techniques. Diagrams have been used since prehistoric times on Cave painting, walls of caves, but became more prevalent during the Age o ...

is designed to look like a

hanging Hanging is killing a person by suspending them from the neck with a noose or ligature strangulation, ligature. Hanging has been a standard method of capital punishment since the Middle Ages, and has been the primary execution method in numerou ...

man. This has led to some controversy. In situations where drawing a public execution may not be advisable, alternative methods to keep track of the number of incorrect guesses can be used, such as crossing

apples An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...

off of a tree. Some modifications to game play (

house rule House rules are unofficial modifications to official game rules adopted by individual groups of players. House rules may include the removal or alteration of existing rules, or the addition of new rules. Such modifications are common in board ...

s) to increase the difficulty level are sometimes implemented, such as limiting guesses on high-frequency

consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract, except for the h sound, which is pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Examples are and pronou ...

s and

vowel A vowel is a speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract, forming the nucleus of a syllable. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness a ...

s. Another alternative is to give the definition of the word; this can be used to facilitate the learning of a

foreign language A foreign language is a language that is not an official language of, nor typically spoken in, a specific country. Native speakers from that country usually need to acquire it through conscious learning, such as through language lessons at schoo ...

. How many incorrect guesses are allowed in the game can also be modified. This can be done by adding extra elements to the stick figure, like a face or shoes, or by first drawing elements of the

gallows A gallows (or less precisely scaffold) is a frame or elevated beam, typically wooden, from which objects can be suspended or "weighed". Gallows were thus widely used to suspend public weighing scales for large and heavy objects such as sa ...

for every mistake before starting to draw the stick figure.

Strategy

The fact that the twelve most commonly occurring letters in the

English language English is a West Germanic language that developed in early medieval England and has since become a English as a lingua franca, global lingua franca. The namesake of the language is the Angles (tribe), Angles, one of the Germanic peoples th ...

are e-t-a-o-i-n-s-h-r-d-l-u (from most to least), along with other letter-frequency lists, are used by the guessing player to increase the odds when it is their turn to guess. On the other hand, the same lists can be used by the puzzle setter to stump their opponent by choosing a word that deliberately avoids common letters (e.g., ''rhythm'', ''zephyr'', ''qi'', ''nth'') or one that contains rare letters (e.g., ''jazz''). Another common strategy is to guess vowels first, as English only has five vowels ( a, e, i, o, and u, while y may sometimes, but rarely, be used as a vowel) and almost every word has at least one. According to a 2010 study conducted by Jon McLoone for

Wolfram Research Wolfram Research, Inc. ( ) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational company that creates computational technology. Wolfram's flagship product is the technical computing program Wolfram Mathematica, first released on June 23, 1988. ...

, the most difficult words to guess include ''jazz'', ''buzz'', ''hajj'', ''faff'', ''fizz'', ''fuzz'' and variations of these.

Derivations

The American game show '' Wheel of Fortune'' was inspired by hangman.

Merv Griffin Mervyn Edward Griffin Jr. (July 6, 1925 – August 12, 2007) was an American television show host and media mogul. He began his career as a radio and big band singer, later appearing in film and on Broadway theatre, Broadway. From 1962 to 1986, G ...

conceived of the show after recalling long car trips as a child, on which he and his sister played the game.

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

also had a show in the 1960s and again from 2012 to 2013 called ''Let's Play Hangman'', hosted by

Silvio Santos Senor Abravanel (; 12 December 1930 – 17 August 2024), known professionally as Silvio Santos, was a Brazilian television presenter and business magnate. Widely regarded as the greatest personality in Television in Brazil, Brazilian television, ...

. Brazil would later get its own version of ''Wheel of Fortune'', running from 1980 to 1993, again from 2003 to 2012 (during which the new ''Let's Play Hangman'' aired), and again since 2013 to the present. These shows were also hosted by Santos.

References