A game played with a dictionary that banks on the epistemological shortcomings of those who define words for a living. To play:
- Think of a word whose definition is fuzzy and debated endlessly within academe. Truth, knowledge, and idea are all excellent for your purposes.
- Find a dictionary. The more comprehensive, the better. Something found on a pedestal in the library, like the Oxford English Dictionary.
- Look up the definition of the word you've chosen. If you're playing with a friend, they do the same.
- Look for other "fuzzy" words in the definition you find, pick one, and look it up.
- If you find that the first word you looked up is in the definition of the next, proceed to the next step. If not, find another "fuzzy" word and continue the process until the first word appears in a definition.
- Cry out "Vish!" with all the passion you can muster after the exertion of sitting in front of a dictionary for half an hour.
The name of this game is a shortening of a philosophical term, "
vicious circle". It refers to the form of a defined word whose definition ultimately rests on itself, making the definition
circular, and therefore logically shaky.