Richard has said elsewhere, "And, so far as the invention of sports is concerned, I am not being chauvinistic here, simply accurate. I think you will find we invented rounders (baseball), football and rugby (American football) and netball (basketball). That's not even to menion such popular US sports as golf (still, amazingly, called golf in the USA) and snooker/billiards (pool)."

Let me say this as gently as possible: not so.

But as he further notes, "It would be an interesting thread to look at the names and origins of sport, since many of them (golf, cricket, croquet) do not have names that in any way describe the activity."

Good idea. Let's do it.

I fumed when I saw the comment about basketball. Fortunately, others had dealt with it by the time I'd calmed enough to respond. Basketball is one of the few sports that can be said to have been "invented", rather than evolved.

Its inventor, James Naismith, a college physical education instructor at the time, and the faculty faced a problem after the balmy autumn months that allowed vigorous outdoor sports, particularly football. Come winter, the exercises that could be done indoors were such hugely boring things as callisthenics or indian-club workouts, and the lads simply lost interest.

"At our meetings [we faculty] discussed the need for some game that would be interesting, easy to learn, and easy to play in the winter and by artificial light." With typical committee dynamics, all supported the boss's general idea to create such a game; none acted on it in the ensuing weeks; and then Naismith, having particularly agreed with the boss, was assigned the task of actually coming up with such a game. "I determined to modify some of the outdoor sports", but found all too rough for a confined space with a hard floor.

• "Football was the first game that I modified. In eliminating the roughness, I tried to substitute the tackling of English Rugby ... to stop the runner rather than to throw him. This did not appeal to the members of the class. To ask these men to handle their opponents gently was to make their favorite sport a laughing stock, and they would have none of it."
• "Soccer I next attempted. On the gymnasium floor the men were accustomed to wearing soft soled shoes. [But in their excitement] they forgot all about their shoes and drove the ball with all their might. As a result of this, many of them went limping off the floor; instead of an indoor soccer game, we had a practical lesson in first aid. And if they missed their shots at the goal, they were likely to smash the windows."
• "There was still one more game that I was determined to try, and this was lacrosse." It prove unwise to bring a game with swinging sticks into a confined space. Upon a trial, "football and soccer appeared tame in comparison. No bones were broken, but faces were scarred and hands were hacked. The [lacrosse] beginners were injured and the experts were disgusted; another game went into the discard."

Basically, Naismith devised basketball around two basic ideas to eliminate roughness:

• "If he can't run with the ball, we don't have to tackle, and if we don't have to tackle, the roughnesss will be eliminated."
• "If the goal were horizontal instead of vertical [that is, the ball enters it from above rather than from the front], the players would be comelled to throw the ball in an arc, and force, which made for roughness, would be of no value." Also, "I placed the goal avaved the players heads", so that they could not form an impervious defensive wall simply by standing in front of the goal.

The first rules were drafted and typed just before the class arrived. "I told them that I had another game, which I felt sure would be good. I promised them thit if this was a failure, I would not try any more experiments."

Not a problem.

Wasn't golf started in Scotland? I do agree, though, that generally sports tend to evolve, rather than to be invented.

Ah well, sport isn't my area of expertise, I confess, and I didn't bother to check about netball/basketball. Clearly it is a US invention.

I stick with my general contention, though, that the UK, and especially, England, is the origin of most sports (whether you care to call it invention or development is a matter of semantics, I suggest).

Rugby is a development of football - but William Webb Ellis could be considered to have invented the game when he decided to pick up a football and run with it.

And golf is also a British sport, first played, as Kalleh notes, in Scotland.

From semi-thorough research:

badminton: from 19th century British soldiers in the Indian city of Poona (now Pune); the game was originally called Poona. Unclear to me whether they adopted an indigenous Indian game, or invented their own based on British children's games.

baseball: U.S., but bat-and-ball games have a long history. Britannica notes that baseball's 'immediate ancestor' is the British game of rounders, but considers them separate games.

basketball: U.S. ; see above

football games (soccer, rugby; US football) (per Britannica): England and U.S. Similar sports have a long history. It's unclear how they came to England, but by the 1840s clubs there disagreed as to whether or not the hands could touch the ball. Separate groups formed and in 1863 and 1871, respectively, published rules for Association Football (now soccer) and Rugby Football, after which the two groups went their separate ways.
. . . .US players took up Rugby Football and soon formed a governing body. Starting 1876 that body made "important changes" in the rules almost every year until, by the end of WWI, "on the whole the result of this vast body of changes has been to create a distinctive American game."

golf: developed by the Scots (not an "English" game, for the same reasons as apply to lacrosse, below); the Scots may well have taken it from the Dutch. The name 'golf' comes from Dutch.

lacrosse: American Indians; name from Canadian Fr. jeu de la crosse "game of the hooked sticks." (Said Indians, though now in the dominion of U.S or Canada, consider themselves a separate ethnic group. It would those be presumptuous, and offensive to them, to claim this as an "American" game.)

polo: Persian (per Britannica): earliest records are Persian; then spread eastwards as far as China, Japan, Tibet; flourished in 16th century India, then vanished there; reintroduced there in 1863 by Brits from Manipur; brought to England 1869 by the 10th Hussars. Name is from Tibetan pulu = ball.

racketball: U.S. 1949; developed by Joe Sobek from a combination of squash and handball.

tennis: France. In jeu de paume (game of the hand), 11th century Fr. monks struck the ball with the hand. The game came to the Fr. court by the next century. It thence become a favorite of English royalty, including Henry VIII; indeed "many of his financial problems were due to his massive wagers on the Real Tennis court. James I lost his life due to Real Tennis, as he tried to evade his assassins by hiding down the drains his path was blocked by Real Tennis balls." (web)
. . . .The racket game of 'tchigan' had been played in ancient Persia (tchigan), and 'sphairistike' in ancient Greece. At an 1873 garden party in Wales, English British Major Walter Clopton Wingfield changed tennis by using a much more resilient ball and called the game called sphairistikè, from which modern outdoor tennis evolved. To distinguish, the older version is now called court tennis, and the newer version lawn tennis." In creating the new sport, Wingfield borrowed heavily from the older games of court tennis and squash racquets and probably even from the Indian game of badminton.
. . . .Terminology: 'tennis': Fr. tenez, meaning "Hold!" as a command; a warning from the server (rather like the cry "Fore!" in golf). Scoring of 'love': Fr l'oeuf = the egg, per the egg-shaped zero symbol. Scoring of 15, 30 and 40: from Fr quinze, trente and quarante, which makes a euphonious sequence.

volleyball: U.S., 1895. Volleyball, like basketball, was invented by an individual. The gentleman was William Morgan, who had recently been a James Naismith at the time Naismith invented basketball.

boxing, wrestling, archery, track and field events: prehistory

bear-baiting; cock-fighting; fox-hunting: English, I believe (not checked)

Quote "...golf: developed by the Scots (not an "English" game, for the same reasons as apply to lacrosse, below);..."

So that there is no misunderstanding, you will find that nowhere did I ever claim that golf was an English invention. It is, however, a British invention.

See my separate posting about the origins of sports and my further comment about antiquity.

I would further comment, for the sake of completeness, that there are three kinds of football in the UK - football (soccer), Rugby League and Rugby Union. All were invented in England.

While still deciding yet whether to speak further, I note this.

Richard, June 21: "I stick with my general contention, though, that the UK, and especially, England, is the origin of most sports"
Richard, June 23: "nowhere did I ever claim that golf was an English invention. It is, however, a British invention."

I doubt the Scots would approve of your formulation, for you gave them no credit -- never mentioned them -- until Kalleh pointed out their role. Its like a Frenchman saying, "we invented" something German, and then saying that by "we" he meant "europeans".

Were the Scots polically separate from your government at the time they invented/devoloped golf, coming under your sway only later?

I can see Squash being of British origin (the sport, not the drink, though, for that matter, maybe both) but how about about Racquetball?

Or beter yet, has anyone over there heard of Wallyball? It's hugely popular in some areas in the states (an east coast thing, I think) but definitely not nationwide. Wallyball is team Racquetball with a net down the middle, a huge inflated ball, no racquets, and the ability to play the ball off the walls and ceiling. Truly bizarre.

Although if it's the supremely bizarre you want, I saw a cable TV show a few months ago where they combined Basketball with 6 or 8 TRAMPOLINES set in the court! At one point, one of the players hit the trampoline with all his strength and when he dunked the ball into the basket, his hips were level with the rim! I swear I'm not making this up! I don't remember what they called it but it has to be an American invention and I would love to see it catch on!

A postscript:

Just back from some googling and the trampoline/basketball thing, which also apparently includes aspects of American football as well, is called "Slamball." I googled both "Wallyball UK" and "Slamball UK" and got over a thousand hits each so both apparently are catching on to some degree over there. Especially in the case of Slamball, I heartily recommend you catch a game if the opportunity ever presents itself.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Chris J. Strolin,

Quote "...Its like a Frenchman saying, "we invented" something German, and then saying that by "we" he meant "europeans". ..."

Not really. The UK is an entify that is quite separate from France or Germany. The relationship between the countries of the UK is more akin to the relationship between the States of the USA. The relationship between France and the UK is more akin to that between the USA and Canada. The same continent but quite different political entities.

When I posted say that "...I think you will find we invented rounders (baseball), football and rugby (American football) and netball (basketball). That's not even to menion such popular US sports as golf (still, amazingly, called golf in the USA) and snooker/billiards (pool)."..." I was wrong about basketball, as I have admitted.

I was also guilty of a lack of precision in language. I meant "we" to refer to the British, not the English, and should obviously have said so since the inferences that have been drawn have varied according to people's individual interpretations. However, as I have also said, it is the English primarily amongst the countries of Britain who were the great sports inventors.

Scotland, for many years part of the UK (and always part of the British Isles) invented golf and a few other sports. Had I excluded golf from my brief summary of British-invented sports then I doubt that this argument would have happened.

Richard says, "When I posted say that "...we invented ... golf ...I meant "we" to refer to the British."

Would you also say, "The British invented Scotch Whiskey"?
Or would you say, "The British wear kilts"?

Quote "...Would you also say, "The British invented Scotch Whiskey"?
Or would you say, "The British wear kilts"?..."

No, I would not, since the Scots invented Scotch Whiskey (although both the Manx and the Irish have their own versions). It would be as pointless to say that the British invented Scotch as it would to say that the Europeans did so.

The present Scottish Kilt (actually designed and developed in England in the 19th Century) is not worn much outside Scotland, but kilts are worn in other parts of the British Isles. It would be accurate, although misleading, to say that the British wear kilts as it would be accurate and misleading to say that Americans live in skyscrapers. Some do; most do not.

And the use of the ellipsis makes it appear that I said the British invented golf - in one and the same breath - and that's not true. I said that we (by which I meant the British) invented most sports and that is a fact. The reference to golf was in a different sentence. Although the sense is there I did not, and would never have made, the statement in that way.

The present Scottish Kilt (actually designed and developed in England in the 19th Century) is not worn much outside Scotland, but kilts are worn in other parts of the British Isles.

And the present day clan tartans were a gimmick invented by a couple of Polish brothers (the Sobieski Stuarts) who wrote a book about the ancient dress of the Scots. Bringing this back to words, did you know that the Latin word Scotus meant Irish?

quote:

---

Scotch Whiskey

---

<cringe>

The word is whisky!

"Whiskey" is produced by the Irish.

Quote "...Bringing this back to words, did you know that the Latin word Scotus meant Irish?..."

I didn't - so why didn't they call Ireland Scotia, rather than Hibernia?

so why didn't they call Ireland Scotia, rather than Hibernia

Some did. The original Scotia was Ireland / Eirinn. Dumbarton and other places in the Scottish lowlands were originally British (i.e., Welsh) kingdoms (during the Roman occupation). The British tribes that resisted the Romans and then the Saxons got pushed west into Wales (Cymru, Cambria), SW into Cornwall (Dumnonia, Cornubia), S into Britany (Armorica), and north into Scotland. Another Latin name for Scotland is Caledonia. The Romans called the pre-Irish, possibly non-Celtic, inhabitants of Scotland Picti, because they "painted" themselves. The Irish called the British (i.e., the Welsh) Cruithni which is probably Brithoni after P ~ Q interchange from Proto-Celtic. The placename Hibernia is possibly related to Eire, Eirinn; possibly folk etymology having to do with winter. The Romans and Greeks referred to Britain as Albion or Albania, and the strangest name I know for England, i.e., that land south of the Humber excluding Cornwall (and perhaps Wales) is Loegria: made popular by Geoffrey of Monmouth.

To clarify jheem's explanation:

quote:

---

Important Note

The Scots (originally Irish, but by now Scotch) were at this time inhabiting Ireland, having driven the Irish (Picts) out of Scotland; while the Picts (originally Scots) were now Irish (living in brackets) and vice versa. It is essential to keep these distinctions clearly in mind (and verce visa).

---

-- 1066 And All That

Thank you. I am now totally clarified.

<Hic runs off to read James Joyce now.>

-- 1066 And All That

Yes, indeed, thank you, aput. Nice quotation.

The kilt may be of British origin but the word itself comes from the mid-19th century American wild west. A foreigner walked into a bar wearing one and was informed "Something like that could get you kilt!"


(...oh, I'm hot today!)