The wheels were one of the horrible misfeatures in the Gold Crown that never should have been there. The wheels (and the GC nameplate) are also good for removing knuckle skin on those of us who try to keep our butts down.
14.1 ----101
- Thread starter FranCrimi
- Start date
Holy cow! You got this kind of nastiness going on in the 14.1 forum, too?:grin:
FWIW here is Fran's OP:
I see nothing offensive about what she wrote that should get anybody's shorts in a knot. Just a strongly felt opinion IMSFO.
Anyway, my feeling is that language does evolve, but jargon endures. I love learning the proper jargon that accompanies a new area of specialization. I love tradition as well, and I've built a few traditional wooden boats. Boatbuilders use antiquated terms that are hundreds of years old. I can't even imagine the looks I'd get from fellow boatbuilders if I started talking about the "back of the boat" instead of calling it the "stern". There's port, starboard, fore, aft, bow, stern, sheer, breasthook, gunwales, keel, strakes, garboard, staving, transom, rocker, trunnel, stopwater, stem, thwart, spar, stealer, spiling, fid, chine, knee, carvel, buttock, bearding line, riband, scantlings, rake, lofting, deck, bilge, and so on.
There are dozens of boat-specific terms that could easily be replaced by ones more understandable to the uninitiated. But why? It would suck the soul right out of boatbuilding for me. Let the newbies learn the proper traditional terminology, or be shunned by those in the know. Any boatbuilder worth his salt would consider deliberately replacing these ancient and cherished terms with modern equivalents to be disrespectful to say the least. Can't we keep just a few traditional terms alive in billiards as well?
A little off-topic, but wow! You sure stirred up a lot of memories with those boat terms! As a US Navy veteran, I know *all* of them, and found myself going "wow, I hadn't see that word since I'd served" on several of the words you mentioned. Once in a while, when I take e.g. the Staten Island Ferry, I find myself correcting the people I'm traveling with, when they incorrectly describe their position on the ferry, or when they point in certain directions in relation to the ferry itself. E.g. port, starboard, bow, stern, fore, aft, midships (you missed that one!
), quarterdeck (you missed that one! ), keel, bilge, etc.Anyway, thank you for the pleasant reminiscing! Back on topic...
-Sean
Sloppy,
You're missing some of the context. In another thread on the World Tournament, I asked the length of the race for the final match. Fran jumped in there and said that she preferred the term "points" to the term "race." See: http://forums.azbilliards.com/showthread.php?t=330813&page=11
It should have ended there. Fran started this thread with the OP you quoted. By starting this thread, titling it "14.1 101," and mentioning "respect for the game" and "ignorance" multiple times, she is being insulting and condescending to me, and I take that personally. Not only is Fran flat-out wrong about the current state of the terminology (see my first post in this thread for examples: http://forums.azbilliards.com/showpost.php?p=4321049&postcount=2), but her attitude is way over the line. IMO, her attitude does far more harm to the game than any possible bickering over terminology.
I'm a pretty easygoing guy but I am not about to let anyone talk down to me for my choice of terminology.
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Thanks for the primer, Fran. I think it would be great if you find the time to make that tutorial.
My beads are the bigger ones with the heavy wire you used to find in rooms years ago, not those dinky $25 sets you find in the supply houses today. All of the beads were there, but one of the flags (#30) was missing. I washed about 75 years of smoke and grime off them with Murphy's oil soap. Then I cut out a flag from hard maple and sealed it with some fresh shellac. I took a pic of the other #30 flag and resized it to life-size in Photoshop. I reversed it so the image was backward, made several copies (both directions) to experiment with, then took it to Kinkos and had them make a laser print of it.
At home I cut out the images, placed them upside-down over both sides of the blank flag and used a hot iron to transfer the ink (now facing the correct way) to the blank, sealed it with some fixative and glued it in place. Voila! A perfect rendition of the original calligraphy on the flag along with the proper wood grain and color. Looks great! Now all I have to do is make up a classy board that matches my table to mount them on and I'm off to the races.
Er... I mean games.
Attachments
Haha! Very cool.
Not too long ago I was helping an old friend set up his pool room and he he had about 30 sets of nicotine-stained beads from who-knows-how long ago. I did just what you did and filled up a bucket of Murphy's oil soap and water and washed all that grime off them. They turned out beautiful.
That's only your opinion, which you are entitled to. Doesn't mean it's right. The game of Straight Pool is in no way, shape, form, or manner a race. Race, as I said above, has always been about short rack games, including One Pocket, as opposed to a long game such as 14.1 which continues racks added together to the end of the game. Short rack games do not do this. I see no reason to refer to 14.1 games as a race.
Yup, you're right about the gaps between the beads. Maybe you've come across this too, but I've found lately that there often isn't enough room for a proper gap. I guess we should be happy that there's beads at all these days.
The World Tournament's brackets and NYC Grind's news articles disagree.
Anyway, my bigger beef is with Fran's attitude. There is no reason that discussions over preferred terminology should devolve into a question of "respect" and "ignorance." For someone who claims to be an ambassador of the game, that attitude is well beyond the pale.
Well, if we have to accept "twerking" and "selfie" how bad can "races" in 14.1 be?
Lou Figueroa
I would have to ask why. People have been around 9 ball so long they refer to every game as a race without even thinking about it. The news doesn't know any better, and whoever did the brackets either doesn't know {I think most people who've come on the pool scene since 9 ball became the main game don't know} or think it's just "easier" to call it a race.
Clearly enough people are using the term "race" to refer to the length of a game of 14.1 that it's not "disrespectful" or "ignorant" to do so. Terminology changes. If it didn't, we would all be using queues instead of cues.
>>Clearly enough people are using the term "race" to refer to the length of a game of 14.1 that it's not "disrespectful" or "ignorant" to do so. Terminology changes. If it didn't, we would all be using queues instead of cues.<<
i agree that you've been unjustly maligned in this discussion, and that we need to welcome rotation players, ignorant or otherwise...
...but there is no etymological connection between "queue" and "cue".
i agree that you've been unjustly maligned in this discussion, and that we need to welcome rotation players, ignorant or otherwise...
...but there is no etymological connection between "queue" and "cue".
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TSW:
Concerning the bolded part above, I would not use "The World Tournament" (which is Dragon Promotions' term) and "NYC Grind" as authoritative sources. For one thing, they are *both* normally short-rack rotation-oriented entities, and other than 14.1, you never see them refer to any other game except short-rack rotation games.
*Of course* they are going to "slip" and use terminology that's common to their bread-and-butter, short-rack rotation. That doesn't mean it's right or correct. Pointing to them and saying "AHA! See? These 'authorities' use this terminology, so that makes it correct!" Nor does countering someone else's post here with pointing a finger at these two and saying "These two 'highly esteemed' authorities don't agree." It's actually back-wash when you think about it. ("Back-wash" meaning escapist/evasive/deflectionary.)
Although I'm in agreement with most here that the use of the word "race" when referring to a *points-based* game (a single game, mind you, not a string of games started off by a wildcard break shot) is incorrect. 14.1 is a *points-based* game (notice the singular usage of the word "game"). Short-rack rotation is a string of gameS (notice the plural), and the word "race" refers to the accomplishment of achieving "this number" of games.
You don't count races as a number of footsteps; you count races in milestones, such as of kilometers or miles.
While I'm in agreement with most here (including Fran) that we shouldn't "buckle under" the pressure of the sheer numbers of the short-rack rotation crowd in letting them redefine the lexicon of our game (and especially as you put it, TSW, of being under the guise of "things change, we should shut up and roll with it"), I do think the effort involved is put to better use. There are other things to worry about, that I think effort of this magnitude would better serve the game.
For me, I just politely tap the person (who's using the wrong/9-ball terminology towards 14.1) on the shoulder, advise him/her that we don't use that word here, what the proper phraseology is, and move on. If they do it again, I just repeat the process -- politely. Don't give up. Eventually, it will "click" and they'll get it.
But definitely don't get into a spat with the person, because the last thing we need is dissension in our small ranks.
-Sean
Well, maybe, but the French word for the stick used at billiards is "queue".
Googled the definition of race.
Verb:
to compete with another or others to see who is fastest at covering a set course or achieving an objective
Now to the definition of "fastest". Does this mean the first one to reach the objective? Or reaching the objective in the least amount of time?
Verb:
to compete with another or others to see who is fastest at covering a set course or achieving an objective
Now to the definition of "fastest". Does this mean the first one to reach the objective? Or reaching the objective in the least amount of time?
Frank Taberski was known as "The Snail" but he often was the first over the line.
See http://gremsdoolittlelibrary.blogspot.com/2012/08/billiards-legend-frank-taberski.html
The three-minute shot clock was instituted to counter his tactics.
In the book McGoorty he spoke of Taberski and his feuds with Greenleaf, the best one was where he knocked Greenleaf out for pulling a few stunts on him.
Then McGoorty mentions one incident where Taberski spent 40 mins studying a shot over and over and over and then shot a safety ! He said they almost had to clear the place out because the fans were going nuts, lol.
I dont know how accurate the storys were, but the book is extremely entertaining.
...or you can go to Merriam Webster, which defines "race" to include:
4c: a contest or rivalry involving progress toward a goal <pennant race>
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/race
I appreciate the traditions expressed in this thread but I am going to continue using "race" because (1) it is an accepted pocket billiards term, (2) it is not incorrect definitionally, and (3) I find it easier in context. "What's the race?" conveys the same meaning and is more efficient than "How many points must a player reach to win this game?"
If anyone looks down on me for that, then that tells me more about their character than my own.
- Geoff
If anyone looks down on me for that, then that tells me more about their character than my own.
- Geoff
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