[lit-ideas] The Meaning of 'Sport' -- as Quintessentially English
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 2 Jun 2004 19:06:17 EDT
In a message dated 6/2/2004 5:19:00 PM Eastern Standard Time,
phatic@xxxxxxxxxx writes:
is not recognized as a violent and
aggressive
> activity unlike football, the writer does not appreciate it as a
sport."
I was reading David Frost and Antony Jay's, on this -- in "The English" (New
York: Stein and Day):
"The English invented sport. It is true that the Greeks had athletic
tournaments, the medieval Europeans had jousts and tourneys, that the nobility
all
around the world have always found jolly ways of killing wild animals, and
that Scotsmen have been throwing telegraph poles at each other since the dawn
of
time. Nevertheless, the concept of sport as organized open air competition of
an essentially useless nature is an English one, and a recent English one at
that. The word 'sport' as we now use it did not occur until 1864 -- the idea
is essentially Victorian. In particular the aura of decency and fair play
and leisurely activity is Victorian, and the word sportsman as a term of
praise
is first recorded in 1893. The whole concept is so alien to other nations
that the French, for example, have had to swipe the actual word from us (_Le
sport_), since they cannot even translate it." (p. 230).
Cheers,
JL
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