Chase from Jacksonville, Florida, grew up in Sacramento, California, where kids played Rochambeau instead of rock, paper, scissors. Why the difference in names? Nobody knows. Folklorists call this a choosing game, and while the hand-game itself likely spread when Europeans adapted a Japanese game called jan-ken-pon, the Rochambeau connection remains unexplained. There’s an even older Japanese version, mushi-ken, or “bug fist,” in which a snake swallows a frog, a frog swallows a slug, and the slug poisons the snake. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Why Is the Choosing Game Sometimes Called “Rochambeau”?”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, how’s it going?
Super duper.
Who is this?
This is Chase from Jacksonville, Florida.
Hi, Chase.
Welcome to the program.
What’s on your mind?
Well, I had a question about something that we always would say when I was a kid.
I didn’t grow up in Florida.
I grew up in Sacramento, California, and we didn’t play rock, paper, scissors, we played Rochambeau.
So it was the same kind of game we did throw out a rock, paper, or scissors, but we didn’t call it that.
We called it Rochambeau.
Oh, interesting.
And I don’t know why.
Yeah, did you pick up Rochambeau as a name for it from family or from schoolmates?
I just remember playing it, yeah, on the schoolyard in elementary school.
And I mean I our whole family called it that too.
Mm—
Yeah.
I mean I know now from history who Rochambeau is, but I just don’t know why we called it that.
Yeah.
Martha, it’s complicated, right?
Well it is, yeah.
And you mentioned Rochambeau from history.
You’re talking about the famous French general who was involved in the American Revolution?
Yeah, and I think he had something to do maybe with the French Revolution too.
Mm—
If I’m not mistaken.
And you so you’re wondering why you called it Rochambeau and other people called it rock, paper, scissors?
Yeah.
It’s it’s kind of always been on my mind.
I was just like, why did we call it that?
And then when we moved to Florida, everybody was doing rock, paper, scissors.
Yeah, that’s interesting.
I spent part of my childhood in central Florida, and we called it scissors paper rock.
Different order.
Yeah.
But the answer about Rochambeau is nobody knows.
Nobody knows why there’s a connection between this word and this choosing game.
Folklores call it a choosing game where kids or adults can sort of engage in in a kind of fairness ritual.
You know, you decide things depending on whether you throw out with your hand a fist or or something that looks like scissors or a flat hand for paper and decide who beats who.
Anyway, nobody knows.
And I don’t know that there’s a regional component to it either.
Do you grant?
No, no.
I will say that it is probably American.
And I will also say be warned that there are false histories of the word Rochambeau out there.
Some of them put forth by organizations that are devoted to Rochambeau.
They just made stuff up out of whole cloth as a gag and people believed it.
Yeah.
But it does look like people from Europe and and the United States started picking up on actually an earlier version that they encountered in Japan.
It was a game called Janken Pon, that was virtually identical to Rochambeau or Scissors Paper Rock.
But I’m wondering, have you ever played Rock Paper Scissors Lizard spock.
No, but I can see how that would go though with the hand symbol there.
Yeah.
Live long and prosper.
Yeah, scissors cut paper.
Paper covers rock.
Rock crushes liz liardzard, poisons Spock, Spock smashes scissors, scissors decapitate lizard, lizard eats paper, paper disproves Spock, Spock vaporizes rock and rock braces.
You know what’s funny about that is both Jan Kin Pond, which is Rock Scissors Paper, and another similar game first appear in a a journal of Japanese culture.
I mean in the eighteen nineties.
But this other game, Martha, is basically translates as bug fist, but it’s got a snake in it.
And it’s it’s got a frog in it.
And it’s got a slug in it.
So it’s snake, frog, slug.
It’s really it’s called mushiken.
The snake swallows the frog, the frog swallows the slug, and the slug poisons the snake.
We did have a lot of Japanese Americans growing up in in in Yeah and so a lot of my friends too, yeah, they would have different versions of the game as well.
Now that I remember that.
Well in any case, Chase, thank you so much.
And if we find out more, you’ll hear it on the show, all right?
All right, perfect.
Thank you very much to you both and it’s been enjoyable listening to you for these years.
Oh yeah, thanks for sharing with us.
Bye bye.
All right, cheers, bye-bye.
Sometimes we talk about games of choosing, games of counting, and we’d love to hear yours eight seven seven nine two nine nine six seven three.
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