The original Secret of Monkey Island had a system called "insult swordfighting". One combatant would taunt the other ("you fight like a dairy farmer!"); if the recipient came up with a good response ("how appropriate. You fight like a cow"), they would take a turn. If not, they would get pushed back. Get pushed far enough back and you lose.

That's what VBProgrammer was referencing. During the Dashing Swordsman sequence in OOTS, Rich recieved a lot of fan mail for referencing MI, but said he'd never heard of it before.