verbingnouns

This is actually one of my biggest pet peeves as a twice-daily playground monitor. I am trying to encourage them to call it "underleg freezetag." I am not all for political correctness for its own sake, but seriously, it sounds so WRONG.

Huh. We never had Chinese freeze-tag when I was a kid. We had the normal sort, of course. And TV-tag. But nothing Chinese. We didn't have anything remotely... "underleg."

Maybe it was because you have to get really close to the ground when you go under the legs, and we all know that if you dig down far enough, you get to China. I dunno. That doesn't really work for Chinese Stoplight, though.

Is Chinese stoplight the the same as Chinese fire drill?

Rachel had the same theory about the Chinese freezetag/digging to China connection.

Maybe it's the bowing thing. Wait, no. That's Japanese. Man you non-Californians have weird traditions.

Right. Non-Californians are known for their weirdness.

I think what he means is, "Man you non-Californians have traditions."

Around here they are, Charles. Chinese freeze-tag? The defense rests, your honour.

we always called it "tunnel tag"

I don't consider Chinese freezetag to be among our finer traditions, Charles (and when I say "Charles," I mean "Robbie").

Can anyone from the east, midwest, northwest, and/or China tell us if they play there or not?

Honi, "tunnel tag" sounds like a good name for it.

Regarding Christin's comment about non-Californians: NCBAAF

On a broader note, I used to play a tennis match from time to time that we called Canadien doubles, in which a team of two players plays against one. I always assumed that it was called that because Canadiens were just too dumb to figure out the whole concept of having two players on both sides of the net.

I always make fun of Angela because growing up her family would always creatively name their homemade games after the object of the game. They had this one called "get to the table" and, you guessed it, they had to avoid big brother and get to the table. "Drink the most diesel" and "whose kitty can stay in the pool the longest" were a few other favorites.

Drink the most diesel!?! That sounds like fun for the whole family.

Okay, strike whatever I said about Californians being weird and change that to Arkansans.

"I can cut anything with a chainsaw,no you can't" and "Watchiss" were fun, too.

But for all we know, through the legs really is the way they play freeze tag in China. It may be as simple as that.

Thank you for bringing us back to the (very important) point of this post, Patrick. ; )

You know what? We called it tunnel tag too. At least we did in 1981-2 at the height of my interest in tag.

I knew it! You did play the game! I'm not sure what the kids are calling it these days, but back in '86 and '87, we called it Chinese Freezetag.

The kids are still calling it Chinese Freezetag, but I had a moment of glory today.

Student 1 - "Let's play underleg tag!"
Others - "Yeah! Underleg tag!

I did indeed play it, but was thrown into confusion by the whole "Chinese" thing. When honi mentioned tunnel tag it all came back (you know how repressed memories are).

And Nine? I don't think Underleg Tag will ever catch on - it just doesn't have the same ring to it....

I'll have to switch to tunnel tag, then. I always called it Chinese, so I didn't know the superior alternative name for it.

"Underleg tag"? Somebody really stretched their imagination to come up with that one. Why not just call it "Hold still when I touch you" instead of freeze tag?