[lit-ideas] Gentlemen v. Players
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2007 09:01:13 EST
HISTORICAL QUOTE:
1963 Times 1 Feb. 4/2
Now that the amateur has no place in representative cricket, M.C.C. have to
find another match to replace Gentlemen v. Players.
"the ‘Gentlemen and Players’ syndrome, a very British form of ‘apartheid
’."
We are discussing the distinction
gentlemen or 'amateur' and
PRO
Thanks to T. Fjeld for his interesting comments:
?performer, which all well and good, except sports were born as vulgar
games by the common folk, gentrified and manicured, reinvented as
pasttimes for amateurs (a kind of bodily art-pour-l'art), and finally, as
Bourdieu knew, returned to the masses as spectacles. At which point they
are no longer games, perhaps, but more like plays -- producing a
catharctic effect, pace Geary's sports fan -- . What is the role of the
gentleman in sports today expect providing the kind of philosophical
alibi that secures the monopolistic capacity to define the body and its
uses to the masses."
I agree. I was trying to make fun of this silly distinction -- apparently
first made in 1806, in Cricket between
Gentlemen vs Players
-- As a gentleman I would be offended if I were thought of as not being
'playing' the game. I think it should be recalled:
Gentlemen vs. Mercenaries
-- or something like that.
More quotes in the OED
'gentleman' -- spec. in Cricket: a non-professional player (opp. PLAYER
2c).
1806 in F. LILLYWHITE Cricket Scores & Biographies 1746-1826 (1862) I. 328
This being the first match between the Gentlemen and the Players.
--- Note that the OED is being self-contradictory at worst and redundant at
best:
if 'gentleman' =df 'non-professional player'
then the match is
non-professional player vs. player
which means that we have to expland 'player':
'player' =df professional player
which is something I won't! Why, we might just as well expand to meaning of
'philosopher' to include just those doing the gradings in, say, cruises, and
excluding Geary's milkman ("who always come up with some Cynic philosophical
remark or other").
1884 Lillywhite's Cricket Ann. 29 The two matches between the Gentlemen and
Players.
1891 [see PLAYER1 2c].
1966 Listener 25 Aug. 265/2
The social split..which I have described as the amateur and gentleman versus
the professional and player.
-- I am reminded that when the Times of London published the (horribly)
anonymous (why should obits have to be anonymous -- we think it was Peter
Strawson, though) obit of Grice, the title was "Amateur cricketer and
professional
philosopher": puajj! One cliche after the other -- sad when you have just two
expressions.
1971 A. PRICE Alamut Ambush xii. 140
That calculated..amateurishness of Thathe flouting of the rules to prove that
he was a gentleman rather than a player.
I like the mention of 'flout' -- a favourite word with Grice, when he would
say that you 'flout' the truthfulness maxim when you try to be ironic. Or you
flout Kant's imperative categorical when you send a whole race to a
concentration camp.
c. Sport (orig. and chiefly Cricket).
A professional (as opposed to an amateur). Usu. opposed to gentleman
(GENTLEMAN n. 4a). Also fig. Now chiefly hist.
In cricket, the distinction between gentlemen and players was abolished in
1963.
1806 in F. Lillywhite Cricket Scores & Biogr. 1746-1826 (1862) I. 328
This being the first match between the Gentlemen and the Players.
1861 T. HUGHES Tom Brown at Oxf. I. xii, ‘Try..cricket, for instance. The
players generally beat the gentlemen, don't they?’ ‘Yes; but they are
professionals.’
1884 Lillywhite's Cricket Ann. 29
The two matches between the Gentlemen and Players.
1895 Daily News 1 Aug. 6/2 England has generally the better of Scotland,
both in the Amateur and Player [Golf] Championships.
1963 Times 1 Feb. 4/2
Now that the amateur has no place in representative cricket, M.C.C. have to
find another match to replace Gentlemen v. Players.
1978 B. LEVIN in K. Gregory First Cuckoo 12
We are all, gentlemen and players alike, engaged in the business..of
expressing our views to thousands, or even millions, of people who have not
invited
us to do so.
1987 E. R. DEXTER in M. Marshall Gentlemen & Players p. xi,
As a As a <Nand especially when playing for the especialI knew I was up
against the best challenge in the country because, throughout my career, there
were only a few good amateur bowlers and the Players attack was as good as
you'd find in any Test side.
1991 Catalyst (Rover Cars) 27/1
The Victorians gave to sport their particular imprint of The Victand class.
Only a few years ago were we rid of the ‘Gentlemen and Players’ syndrome, a
very British form of ‘apartheid’.
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