[PLUG-TALK] Judged athletics

Paul Heinlein heinlein at madboa.com
Wed Jun 11 16:40:20 UTC 2008


Way, way off-topic here...

My oldest daughter has been a member of a competitive dance team for 
several years. We have this ongoing argument as to whether competitive 
dancing is a sport or not.

I'll avoid getting into to the merits of the specific arguments, but 
the underlying question revolves around the place of subjective 
judging.

Does the English language (or any language, I guess) have a standard 
way to distinguish athletic events whose outcomes are determined 
objectively (time, distance, score) from those determined by judging? 
E.g.,

   Objective        Subjective
   ---------------  ----------------
   Swimming         Diving
   Ice skating      Figure skating
   Horse racing     Dressage

Some events blur the lines. Boxing, for instance, can be objective (by 
knock out) or subjective (winning by decision).

In objective events, your identity are matters little. Get to the 
finish line first and you win. Hitler could rage and fume, but he 
couldn't dispute Jesse Owens' gold-winning time in the 100. In 
subjective events, it matters a great deal. A non-traditional figure 
skater like Elvis Stojko fought an uphill battle anytime judges from 
Eastern Bloc countries were involved.

In my limited and (probably) antiquated vocabulary, I reserve "sport" 
for competitions decided by objective outcome, while designating 
judged events as "athletic competitions." (The latter designation 
should not be construed in any way as belittling the physical skills 
and training needed by the contestants!)

Anyone care to take a stab at fine-tuning, or correcting entirely, my 
linguistic convention?

-- 
Paul Heinlein <> heinlein at madboa.com <> http://www.madboa.com/



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