the.com/tiddlywinks
A children's party trick that grown adults at Cambridge weaponized into ruthless tactical warfare.
means A game in which players flick small flat discs into a cup by pressing the edge of a larger disc against them, making them jump and spin.
from A bit of whimsical 19th-century English nonsense-coinage, born of the same playful reduplicating instinct that gives us 'higgledy-piggledy' and 'tiddledy-pom.' The word 'tiddly' was floating around at the time meaning 'tiny' (and, separately, 'slightly drunk'), so a 'tiddlywink' was something small and frivolous — fittingly, 'tiddlywink' was also slang for a tiny unlicensed pub. The exact path to the disc-flicking game is hazy, but the name simply sounds like what it describes: small things going wink, wink, wink into a pot.
- squidging
- Pressing a winks to make it leap is called squidging
- royal challenge
- Cambridge students challenged Prince Philip in 1958
- squopping
- Covering a rival wink to trap it is legal sabotage
- governing body
- Real federations and world championships exist for it
- the pot
- The whole point is potting discs into a cup
cambridge tiddlywinks club — founded 1955, oldest continuously active tiddlywinks club in the world
world tiddlywinks championship — annual tournament held since 1970, recognized international competition