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The 'Broomgate' Controversy Rocking the Sport of Curling
- dijit 10y agoVery off-topic and in regards to the title alone: Could we stop using -gate to mean scandal? it has very little context outside of watergate which was actually the full name of the hotel, and was also called "the watergate scandal" not simply "watergate" Is there a real reason for it? or is it just unfashionable to use the word "scandal"? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scandals_with_%22-gate%22_suffix https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scandals_with_%22-gate...
- evincarofautumn 10y agoA surprising number of words arise from a process called “misdivision”. In this case, “-gate” was coopted as a generic suffix for scandals, in the same way that “-burger” is a generic suffix for certain types of hot sandwich, even though the name comes from Hamburg+er, not ham+burger. Off the top of my head: “a napkin” used to be “an apkin”, “a lute” used to be “al ’ud” (“the lute”, in Arabic); “an orange” used to be “a norange”, and moreover, the colour is named after the fruit—we used to call the colour “yellowred” (geoluread, in Old English). Language evolves in messy and illogical ways.
- thanatropism 10y agoso how does the orange Prince of Orange fit on this tale?
- ricree 10y agoIt has a separate etymology, but pronunciation seems to have been altered by the fruit/color into its modern form. The color was adopted later on after the two terms merged.
- _acme 10y agoFrom Wikipedia: Note that juncture loss may have occurred in a different language before a word reached English; for example, orange did not develop in English from *a norange, but rather the juncture loss occurred in Old French and Anglo-Norman orenge, or possibly in Italian.
- evincarofautumn 10y agoAh, thank you. I had my history mixed up. Still a decent example, though—and curiously it didn’t happen with Spanish naranja.
- 0xcde4c3db 10y agoA similar example is the "-caine" suffix on local anesthetics. This comes from their similarity to co+caine, but cocaine came from coca+ine, being a coca extract.
- blastrat 10y ago| “a napkin” used to be “an apkin” <-- I don't think so I think you are thinking of "a napron" became "an apron" another good one is pease sounded like a plural so pease soup became pea soup. Pease porridge hot, anyone?
- evincarofautumn 10y agoThanks! I should really verify these things before trusting my memory. Napkin and apron are derived from the same root, but it’s not immediately obvious because one of them suffered misdivision (and I had apparently forgotten which one).
- GunboatDiplomat 10y agoI'd also point out that this doesn't even seem to really be a scandal, per se.
- GFK_of_xmaspast 10y agoThe hip alternative seems to be "ghazi".
- userbinator 10y agoThere’s a strong belief in the sport that it’s the players throwing the stones, not the sweepers, who should have the strongest influence on individual shots. My first thought upon reading that sentence was, "Isn't it a team sport?"
- thaumasiotes 10y ago> My first thought upon reading that sentence was, "Isn't it a team sport?" Well, the impression I get from reading the piece is that this is supposed to reduce the thrower's contribution to nearly zero. That's not a nonsensical complaint in the face of the question "isn't it a team sport?"; they're trying to preserve a role for one of the team members. You could just as easily replace the thrower with a controlled machine launch (in fact, the broom testing mentioned in the article already uses such a machine), and you'd have a pretty similar sport, but they don't seem to want to.
- labster 10y agoEveryone throws rocks in curling -- it's not a sport with fixed positions like quidditch. But the new brooms do mean that players will be able to ignore some throwing skills. And that the captain (read: most skilled player) will have more control over the final position of a stone.
- lj3 10y agoThe argument is it fundamentally changes the nature of the sport. Imagine if somebody came up with a baseball with a magnet in it that was attracted to the catcher's glove. The catcher now has most of the control as to where the ball goes and all the pitcher is doing is applying speed to the ball. Would that be a natural advancement of the sport? Or would it be cheating? That's the question the curling world is asking right now. And to make the whole thing murkier, they're able to make this fundamental change not by adding technical wizardry, but by subtly altering something that is already part of the game. Exploiting a flaw in the game, as it were.
- thaumasiotes 10y ago
- squidlogic 10y agoThe article doesn't seem to go into the actual physics too much. It instead links to a blog post [0] and another article [1] that go into more detail. I recommend reading these over the gizmodo one. [0] http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cocktail-party-physics/physicists-on-ice-exploring-the-physics-of-curling/ http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cocktail-party-physics/p... [1] http://www.real-world-physics-problems.com/physics-of-curling.html http://www.real-world-physics-problems.com/physics-of-curlin...
- dang 10y agoNot sure if we should change the URL to the first article you've linked to; it's by the same author, but from 2014, and perhaps there's new information in the current post. Perhaps we'll just take "physics" out of the title above.
- kwhitefoot 10y agoSurely the solution is either to have a more restrictive formula for the equipment or to make the players use each others equipment at random so that bringing a better broom might give the advantage to your opponent.
- mrob 10y agoRandomizing the equipment is a bad idea. If you're confident that you would lose an even contest, then it's a good idea to bring the worst broom allowable. You might get lucky and have your opponent use it, putting them at a disadvantage. If they don't then you lose, but you were going to lose anyway. Randomization always favors the weaker party.