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Word Association Football
What's the origin of the phrase 'Word Association Football'?
Word association is a psychological technique invented by Jung in which patients are asked for an immediate response to any word fired at them. A word game based on this in which the first player starts with a word and subsequent players have to follow with a related word and so on has been staple fare for families on long car journeys and the like for many years.
Association football is the proper name of soccer (and the origin of the word soccer incidentally).
In a use of what computer programmers call recursion, the Monty Python team used the technique to provide an example of itself by merging the two terms. The subsequent inspired comic piece that was performed by John Cleese on the Python album Matching Tie and Handkerchief:
Tonight's the night I shall be talking about of flu the subject of word association football. This is a technique out a living much used in the practice makes perfect of psychoanalysister and brother and one that has occupied piper the majority rule of my attention squad by the right number one two three four the last five years to the memory. It is quite remarkable baker charlie how much the miller's son this so-called while you were out word association immigrants' problems influences the manner from heaven in which we sleekit cowering timrous beasties all-American speak, the famous explorer. And the really well that is surprising partner in crime is that a lot and his wife of the lions' feeding time we may be c d e effectively quite unaware of the fact or fiction section of the Watford Public Library that we are even doing it is a far, far better thing that I do now then, now then, what's going onward christian Barnard the famous hearty part of the lettuce now praise famous mental homes for loonies like me. So on the button, my contention causing all the headaches, is that unless we take into account of Monte Cristo in our
thinking George the Fifth this phenomenon the other hand we shall not be able satisfact or fiction section of the Watford Public Library againily to understand to attention when I'm talking to you and stop laughing, about human nature, man's psychological make-up some story the wife'll believe and hence the very meaning of life itselfish bastard, I'll kick him in the balls Pond Road.
