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Tap a straw to pull it (/)
Names
Add at least 2 names. Or 12. Whatever this argument requires.
Drawing straws is one of the oldest ways people have settled things fairly. You hold a bunch of straws (or grass stalks, reeds, or broken twigs) in your fist so only the tips show, all looking the same length. Everyone pulls one, and whoever draws the shortest is chosen.
It is a form of "drawing lots," a practice recorded for thousands of years. In the Book of Jonah, sailors caught in a storm drew lots to find who was to blame. The short straw fell to Jonah, who was thrown overboard to calm the sea.
- Traditionally the short straw is the loser: the one stuck with the unpleasant job. That is where "the short end of the stick" comes from.
- Sailors, soldiers, and settlers used it to hand out dangerous duties without anyone playing favorites.
- The phrase "draw the short straw" goes back to at least the 1800s.
Spinning a wheel to decide your fate is an old idea. Medieval art is full of the Rota Fortunae, the wheel of the goddess Fortuna, who turns it to lift some people up and drop others down at random, a symbol of how quickly luck can change.
Money wheels at carnivals and the giant spinning wheels on game shows turned it into a pop culture icon that almost everyone recognizes.
- A fair spinning wheel is basically a circle shaped die. Where it stops depends only on friction, so a harder spin really is more random.
- Bigger wedges get landed on more often, which is why we give every name a fair slice of the wheel.
- The same physics powers roulette, invented in 18th century France.
Dice are among the oldest game pieces ever found. People were rolling six sided dice thousands of years ago, and tossing knucklebones from sheep and goats long before that.
The Romans loved dice. When Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon to march on Rome, he is said to have declared "the die is cast," meaning the decision was made and there was no turning back.
- On a standard die, the numbers on opposite faces always add up to seven.
- A coin flip is just a two sided die, which is why we show a coin when you have exactly two names.
- Casinos use sharp edged "precision" dice so no face is favored, keeping the odds honest.