Lisa says her whole canasta group in San Diego, California, wonders if there’s a term breasting to denote one’s playing cards close to the chest so that others can’t see them. New card players often lack proprioception, that is, a perception or awareness of the position of their own bodies and where their limbs are in relation to other players, which means they often fail to breast their cards and accidentally reveal them to competitors. The name of the card game canasta, by the way, comes from Uruguayan Spanish, where canasta means “basket.” This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Breasting One’s Hand in a Card Game”
We got an email from Lisa Braun Glazer here in San Diego, and she says,
My Canasta group is desperate to know if the following is a thing or a fantasy.
Is there an expression, breasting your cards, describing what you do when you hold your cards close, or when you’d like your opponent to hold theirs up?
Breasting your cards?
Absolutely. You’re holding next to your breast, right? Holding to your chest.
Absolutely, it’s a thing that you do.
And if you look at guides for new card players, they often talk about the kind of willy-nilly way that amateur card players just hold their cards as if anyone can see them.
They talk about breasting your cards.
Really?
Yeah, because new card players really don’t have this sense of, oh, here’s a word, proprioception.
They don’t have this real understanding of what their body is doing.
Proprioception.
Proprioception is kind of the sixth sense of where your limbs are.
And so they don’t know where their cards are at all times.
So they talk about breasting your cards and keeping them literally close to your chest.
Or your vest.
Or your breast.
Or your breast.
So that other people can’t see them.
So yeah, breasting your cards is a real thing.
And that’s the term for it.
Interesting.
But the game that you’re playing when you’re breasting your cards, what does Elisa play here?
What is the game that she plays?
Well, I say canasta.
Do you say canasta?
I don’t really play it, so I don’t know.
Yeah, I don’t know either.
I just know the etymology.
Oh, yeah, because that’s the fun part.
Yeah, because it comes from a Spanish word that means basket.
Right.
So thanks for the question, Lisa.
Really appreciate it.
Well, what’s the word that you’ve been discussing with your friends?
Send us an email, words@waywordradio.org.
