SPORT and Golf, Cricket, Tennis, Football… Soccer, Rugby, Quoits, – and Ping-pong!
We’re sports mad in this country and that’s not a bad thing all that youthful energy needing an outlet. We speak of sport almost as if it were all one thing, but there are many kinds and their names throw up some strange ideas… Here is a sampling:
Golf is plain enough (much in the news of late!). It entered English in the 15th century and is believed to have come from middle Dutch colf club. Not much interest there.
Cricket is similarly named from criquet, the name of the bat that was used to hit the ball. The word arrived in the 16th century, and is ‘thought’ to have come from Old French. From that rather ignominious beginning, cricket has come a long way, for it now symbolizes decency, good behaviour – and in any area of life. ‘Hardly cricket, old man’ has crept into our language. This game is the very symbol of fair play. (Shock and horror when a player plays underarm!)
Tennis, the word, holds an instruction. See that ten- in there. It comes from Latin tenere to hold as in, say: the tenor holding the tune, tenants holding their tenancy, and tenet, a belief that is held. So let’s to tennis. When serving, you hold the ball, get steady, make sure all is well, and then hit it over the net and towards your opponent. It’s that holding that counts, hence tennis.
And of course we have lawn tennis, needing no explanation and ping-pong, a fun word, arriving as late as the 19th century and an alternative name for table-tennis. It’s colourful, named from the sound the ball makes on the bats and the table.
While football is plain English and needs no explaining, we must take a completely different approach with soccer. It has nothing to do with the action, nothing to do with ‘socking one’ but everything to do with the spelling. Soccer is made up from: As(soc)iation Football. To that little ‘soc’ the powers that be added ‘cer’. It’s great. Soccer has a good sound about it, a lively sound.
But soccer and football seem trivial compared to Rugby. This is first the name of an old market town in England. Here, in 1567, a school was founded, called, simply Rugby. From the beginning the school had a good name its popularity increasing when, from 1828 till 1842 Thomas Arnold was principal. History does this man proud. He was a fine leader with great emphasis on the building of character, and he had a huge influence on public school education. It’s his school that is described in Thomas Hughes’s Tom Brown’s School Days; and it was at this school that rugby was first played. Though rugby wears this crown of glory, it is often referred to casually as ‘rugger’.
Quoits, a game in which a heavy ring is thrown to encircle an iron peg a test of strength is a 15th century addition to English and nobody knows were it came from.
And we’ve got those self explanatory names: basket, baseball, football, softball…
So let’s now look at the all enclosing word ‘SPORT’. It surpasses all the individual names above, for meaning and message. Coming from Latin, it can be divided thus: dis- away from + port, carry. Sport should ‘carry you, dis- away from yourself’. To disport yourself is to enjoy yourself, to be relaxed and happy. He or she who chucks away club, bat or racket in fury mocks the very word.