[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/
More information about the PLUG-talk
mailing list