Did you
know?

to be game
adjective phrase (informal)

- ready and willing to try something (usually for the first time)

- to be ready for action; to be agreeable to participate in something

Free Dictionary / McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms

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PHRASE ORIGIN

“Game”, from the 1600s, is derived from the Old English word gamen which means "joy or pleasure" (God loved he best with all his whole hearte, At alle times, though him gamed or smarte” — William Chaucer)

Like other words in the English language, we typically drop letters like the “-n” that come from Old English phrases. Gamen was the original phrase (pronounced “gar-men”), but now we simply say “game”. Other examples are eyen “eyes”, earan “ears”, tungan “tongues”, fon “foes”, housen “houses”, shoen “shoes”, and treen “trees”.

As a footnote, it’s interesting to mention that the term “gaming” was put forward by the the casino industry as being more sophisticated and acceptable than the word "gambling", which has negative connotations.

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COMMON GAME PHRASES

- ahead of the game = der Konkurrenz voraus sein

- to be considered fair game = für vogelfrei gehalten werden

- give the game away = alles ausplaudern

- a whole new ball game = eine völlig neue Situation

- to see through someone’s game = jmdm. auf die Schliche kommen

- a cat-and-mouse game = Katz-und-Maus-Spiel

- ... is the name of the game = ... lautet die Devise

- the game is up = das Spiel ist aus

- the game is not worth the candle = die Sache lohnt sich nicht

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SYNONYMS

- for “I’m ready and willing to try something new”

Count me in, I’ll give it a go, I’M GAME, Let’s do it, I’m in, I’m all in, I’m down, I’m up for that, Put me down for that

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SMUGGLE OWAD into an English conversation, say something like:

“Are you GAME enough to smuggle OWADS into daily conversations?”

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and,

Paul Smith, IBAN: DE75 7316 0000 0002 5477 40