Uneven Bars

[BarcodeZebra]

I'm a little late with this but WTF...

When did we start to refer to the "uneven bars" in gymnastics? Are we now to dim to understand the word asymmetric?

We didn't podium in this event, much less medal....

I shot myself in the head, Hab, but it doesn't seem to have made much difference...

try for third time lucky, palaver

Oh I give up: asymmetric

hmm maybe uneven bars has a place after all

There are some horrible spelling variations of asymmetric on this thread.

I'm so glad others have noticed this. They were called 'uneven bars' at the last Olympics but I thought it was just for that event. It does make me cross - why can't they leave names alone?

In 1980 I came third in an asymmetric bars competition (in the days when I could move!) it certainly was not called the uneven bars then.

uneven bars are where crystallographers go after work to consume an asymmetric unit of alcohol.

I have been wincing at the use of the verb 'to medal', but now that I see it was used by Byron (although in the sense of to receive one, rather than to win one, it seems) I am, naturally, mollified.

SqueakyPop: where's your sense of fun tempered by mild irritation? Let me be cross about it. Please?

In the early modern period the use of Latinate terms like asymmetric over the more "typical" English construction such as uneven was considered to be a step towards the demise of the English language. Critics called them "Inkhorn" words. Plus ça change...

jeez, I am becoming the anti-pedant.

OK Hab, put down the PhD and back away. No one wants any trouble - we're all friends here. C'mon - don't be silly just give me the doctorate and no one will get hurt...

Shit - Greek, not Latin, as DH has pointed out. Shan't, BCZ.

PS - hello to Mrs Zebra and the ZebraFoals.

Well, I'm not mollified by Lord Byron, who was a funny old cove by all accounts. And who didn't use it in the sense that the Olympics commentators are using it anyway.

A. Byron was a poet. Playing with language was in his job description.

B. We haven't all given up on capital letters just because ee cummings didn't like them, have we?

C. Byron used it meaning a medal was conferred/a person was decorated. Not 'he won or achieved a medal'.

D. Byron shagged his sister so frankly I'm not taking any lessons from him anyway.

E. I do like some of his poems anyway.

edam, the active form in sports contexts first recorded in about 1960, I think. FWIW, I don't like it, but it's not new...

yes palaver, but yours is better.

Edam

Indeedy-doody.

I can't see what would be so onerous about adding two words to say 'he won a medal' rather than 'he medalled'. Nor would I look to Byron for any sort of relationship advice or guidance. But given my moniker (and a certain amount of irony) I do feel, if only for the sake of form, duty-bound to defend any use of English which has or appears to have Byron's blessing!

Byron: Asymmetric legs. Or were they uneven?

harpo - parallel is a tricky word , but you can remember how to spell it if you remember that 'parallel lines' has two sets of parallel lines (the letter l)

rusty

it was a joke... I am actually a spelling nerd!

very good point, there, madbad

OK, you get to be mad, bad and dangerous to know, can I be Dorothy Parker?

If you have to ask permission to be Dorothy Parker then sadly the answer is probably 'no'.