SVO (2020)
SVO, which stands for subject—verb—object, is a card game about putting words together.
Languages operate by agreed upon rules. Those rules can shift over time, as can the words that we apply those rules to. Historically, some people have tried to force new rules upon languages and their speakers. This typically does not go well.
In this game, there are two decks consisting of words that, according to the Oxford English Corpus, make up approximately 85% of English usage. Despite the majority of English vocabulary being made up of words borrowed from Latin and French, these most common words are all descended from Old English words.
CARDS:
SVO features two decks with 57 cards each. One contains nouns, adjectives, and prepositions. The other contains core words and verbs. Prepositions exist in both. A noun’s singular and plural forms occupy the same card (i.e. mistake and mistakes), as do a verb’s conjugated forms (i.e. am, is, are, was, were, will have been, etc.).
OBJECTIVE:
The objective of the game is to make sentences by playing one card at a time. When a sentence is created, a player can take all the cards that make up the sentence. The player with the most cards at the end, wins.
HOW TO PLAY:
To start, players take turns picking up cards from the two decks until each holds 5 cards in their hand. At the beginning of each subsequent turn, players start their turn by picking up until they have five cards in their hand. They can pick from either of the two decks (the white or the black)
On their turn, a player can:
— a) PLAY one word anywhere within the sentence
— b) REARRANGE the words on the table
— c) PASS
Punctuation is not set or represented. Say ‘Comma’ if you want there to be a comma, say Dash if you want there to be a dash, etc.
If the current player creates a complete sentence, the current player can ‘take’ the sentence.
If all players pass, the current sentence is discarded and no one takes its points.
If the current player completes a sentence, but doesn’t realize it, other players can steal the sentence. Though they’ll have to explain how it is complete.
When the two decks are empty and no one can play anymore, the game is over.
The player with the most cards at the end, wins.