Hot potato is a party game that involves players gathering in a circle and tossing a small object such as a beanbag or even a real potato to each other while music plays.[1] The player who is holding the object when the music stops is eliminated.[2]

Origins

The origins of the hot potato game are not clear. However, it may go back as far as 1888 when Sidney Oldall Addy's Glossary of Sheffield Words describes a game in which a number of people sit in a row, or in chairs round a parlor.[3] In this game, a lit candle is handed to the first person, who says:

Jack's alive, and likely to live
If he dies in your hand, you've a forfeit to give.

The one in whose hand the light expires has to pay the forfeit.

See also

References

  1. ^ Wise, Derba (2003-11-10). Great Big Book of Children's Games. McGraw Hill Professional. p. 266. ISBN 9780071422468.
  2. ^ Maguire, Jack (1990). Hopscotch, Hangman, Hot Potato & Ha Ha Ha: A Rulebook of Children's Games. New York: Simon and Schuster. ISBN 0671763326.
  3. ^ "Addy, Sidney Oldall (1888). "The Geographical or Ethnological Position of Sheffield", A Glossary of Words Used in the Neighbourhood of Sheffield." London: Trubner & Co. for the English Dialect Society.
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