Other Meanings
"Playing musical chairs" is also a metaphorical way of describing any activity where items or people are repeatedly and usually pointlessly shuffled among various locations. It can also refer to a condition where people have to expend time searching for a resource, such as having to travel from gasoline station to gasoline station when there is a shortage. It is also used to refer to political situations where one leader replaces another, only to be rapidly replaced in turn due to the instability of the governing system (see cabinet shuffle).
"Musical chairs" is or was formerly also known as "Going to Jerusalem". Laura Lee Hope describes it under that name in chapter XIII of The Bobbsey Twins at School, as does John P. Marquand in chapter XXXI of Wickford Point.
In the musical Evita, during the song "the art of the possible", Juan Perón and a group of other military officers play a game of musical chairs which Perón wins, symbolizing his rise to power.
In mathematics, the principle that says that if the number of players is one more than the number of chairs, then one player is left standing, is the pigeonhole principle.
Read more about this topic: Musical Chairs
Famous quotes containing the word meanings:
“Well, “slithy” means “lithe and slimy.” “Lithe” is the same as “active.” You see, it’s like a portmanteau—there are two meanings packed up into one word.”
—Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832–1898)
“An amoeba is a formless thing which takes many shapes. It moves by thrusting out an arm, and flowing into the arm. It multiplies by pulling itself in two, without permanently diminishing the original. So with words. A meaning may develop on the periphery of the body of meanings associated with a word, and shortly this tentacle-meaning has grown to such proportions that it dwarfs all other meanings.”
—Charlton Laird (b. 1901)