The players have then to fill in words beginning and ending with the letters as thus arranged. One paper might come out thus:—
G rai N
O rde R
V ersatil E
E ... V
R apall O
N othin G
This word is rather a hard one on account of the E and V. As a rule, words of only three letters are not allowed in "Acrostics," nor are plurals. That is to say, if the word has to end in "S," one must not simply add "S" to an ordinary word, such as "grooms" for G——S, but find a word ending naturally in "S," such as "Genesis."
It is not necessary to invert the same word in order to get letters for the ends of the words. Two words of equal length can be chosen and arranged side by side. Thus (but this is almost too difficult an example):—
D K
I I
C P
K L
E I
N N
S G
"Acrostics" may be made more difficult and interesting by giving them a distinct character. Thus, it may be decided that all the words that are filled in must be geographical, or literary, or relating to flowers.
Fives
"Fives" is a game which is a test also of one's store of information. A letter is chosen, say T, and for a given time, ten minutes perhaps, the players write down as many names of animals beginning with T as they can think of. The first player then reads his list, marking those words that no one else has and crossing off all that are also on other players' papers. Then the names of vegetables (including flowers, trees, and fruit) are taken; then minerals; then persons; and then places. The player who has most marks wins the game.
A variety of this game is to take a long word, say "extraordinary," and within a given time to see how many smaller words can be made from it, such as tax, tin, tea, tear, tare, tray, din, dray, dairy, road, rat, raid, and so on.