Because of its put-down power, “stupid” finds its way into all sorts of insults. It doesn’t appear very often in stock expressions, but when it does, it’s memorable.<\/p>\n
A case in point is “Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.”<\/p>\n
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“Play stupid games, win stupid prizes” means that if you take part in something that’s obviously a bad idea, only bad things will come of it. Usually, this phrase is used to refer to violent or humiliating things that happen when someone does something foolish.<\/strong> The first recorded use of “Play stupid games, win stupid prizes” is unclear.<\/p>\n Many people on the Internet claim to have first seen it in Tom Clancy’s books in the 1980s and 1990s.<\/p>\n However, a search of Tom Clancy books on Google Books<\/a><\/strong> reveals that the phrase actually never appears in a single one of his novels.<\/p>\n According to Google Ngrams, the first time “win stupid prizes” as a phrase showed up in print was in the early 1990s.<\/p>\n This appears to have been in a small progressive magazine called Gauntlet, which talks about how people on the game show Truth or Consequence<\/em> compete to “win stupid prizes.”<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n The first actual use of the full phrase, at least according to Google Books, was sometime in the mid-2010s.<\/p>\n However, the phrase certainly predated this time period, as can be seen by the persistent assumption online that it dates from the 1980s.<\/p>\n We could pause to let that sink in<\/a><\/strong>, but instead, let’s leave the origins of this expression shrouded in mystery and learn what it means. Everybody loves board games. They can be a great way to pass the time on a winter evening when you’re stuck inside, or they can help you get to know people better.<\/p>\n Was this expression just coined by someone who secretly hates board games?<\/p>\n Actually, no. The type of “game” referred to here isn’t usually an actual game.<\/p>\n Instead, the word “games” here is being used to refer to some people’s tendency to push buttons and do things they shouldn’t.<\/p>\n
\n <\/p>\nOrigin of “Play Stupid Games, Win Stupid Prizes”<\/h2>\n
\n <\/p>\nMeaning of “Play Stupid Games”<\/h2>\n