COMPARE AND CONTRAST CHILD PLAY, ADULT PLAY, AND ANIMAL PLAY!
Babies play peek-a-boo, and tickle games. Children use language play, and toilet humor. But we teach children to be serious, so by the time they become adults, their play is very structured.
Adults play football or basketball or Quidditch; they play the piano or the violin; they play card games and board games; at Comi-Con they dress as Batman, Robin or Wonder Woman or they act in plays.
Original meaning of a deck of playing cards:
52 cards for 52 weeks in the year.
2 colors for day and night
4 suits for the 4 seasons and 13 weeks per season.
Twelve court cards representing the 12 months.
If we add each of the cards (ace + ace + ace + ace + two + two + three + seven + eight ... and etc) of the game we will get 364.
Jokers were used in leap years.
In 2006 J. K. Rowling had published six of her Harry Potter books, and her seventh (and last) Harry-Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was scheduled to appear in 2007. Therefore, in 2006, there was a “Harry Potter” Fan Conference held in New Orleans, Louisiana in which the participants were expected to discuss and evaluate the first six books, and speculate about the final book in the series—How would it end. Who are the real villains and heroes, etc.? Alleen and Don attended that conference, and Don learned an important difference between men’s discourse strategies and women’s discourse strategies.
Don knew that when men are in social situations, they tend to hold the floor and lecture to the social group. But what Don learned is that when women are in social situations, they tend to share the floor, and co-construct the text. Don also learned that in order to do this, women have to be good listeners. We’re now applying these new insights to the interaction and co-construction of the new kinds of humor that we are now witnessing not only in social groups, but also in social networking on-line.