Talk:English billiards
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[edit] Ball return after potting
Question: how are the balls returned to play once they are sunk?
- The cue balls are not returned until the round ends. The other (red) ball goes back to a spot on the table. Leon 00:04, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Wikified
Wikified! --144.132.75.11 12:31, 20 May 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Picture
I'm going to remove the image from this article; it's confusing since the balls are all wrong Leon 00:04, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
- What's wrong with them? — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 01:38, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
[edit] U.S. terminology on Commonwealth game?
To follow up my ill-advised digression at the stub proposals page (which seemed to have something of a cascade effect) in a more appropriate location: Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that this game 'is known as "English billiards" in the U.S.' (and Canada?), rather than suggesting that's it's only known as "billiards" in "England" (which is certainly too narrow)? On the "what's it called by the people that actually play it" test, I'd suggest this be moved to billiards (now 'freed' by the move of the article formerly at that title), or at any rate to billiards (game), or [[billiards (<some semi-arbitrary disambiguator>)]], and the use of terminology be flipped correspondingly. Alai 02:57, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
- Hmm, interesting. Not really sure. The reference materials I have call it "English billiards" (Shamos, etc.), and the very best bio article to date in all of WP:CUE's purview, Walter Lindrum (which was a great article long before that WPP even existed) was already using "English billiards" (in the para. beginning "It was not till 1929...") I'm not sure how to get around the ambiguity issues otherwise. "Billiards (game)" would perhaps make sense to UK readers but not to a lot of other people, even Commonwealth people. "Billiards (English)" just seems to be the same as "English billiards", but hard to find. I honestly don't have a better idea, especially not a "Billiards (something)". Isn't "English billiards" just like WP's use of "American football", a necessary disambiguation-through-specificity? Actual Americans at-large, and certainly the game's players, don't actually call it that. I get the feeling there is an extant organization that still sanctions/organizes English billiards tournaments, though I am not certain of its name; do they have a site, rule books, and stuff that we can turn to? — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 03:32, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
- PS: I agree with you that the text is Yank-centric and overly-narrow in saying "England"; just to be clear. Am uncertain of what the replacement text should be, because some non-US, non-UK speakers of English use "billiards" in other senses, especially carom billiards, particularly three-cushion. What to do? — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 03:37, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
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- So far as I know, even United Statesians do call the NFL/pigskin/gridiron game "American football" (however resolutely they'd otherwise prefer and claim exclusive use of the unqualified term "football", too) -- see whose corporate website one gets if one googles for the term. Or at any rate, recognise and acknowledge the term, if not actually active "use" in their own speech until such time as they have to introduce "no-not-that-football" qualifiers. It's also until very recently only been played in the United States, and where it is played elsewhere these days, it's invariably referred to explicitly as "American football". (If one considers the Canadian game distinct, at least.) It's fair clearly not possible to have the NFL game article at football, due to the massive name clash. None of those things are true of "English billiards". "Billiards (English)" would be highly illogical, but I don't see any force to the "hard to find" argument: English billiards would still redirect to, well, wherever the article ends up. "Billiards (English billiards)" would be getting into Stroke City territory. Isn't the use of billiards to mean the carom variety basically a French thing, and accordingly a Francophone one? Which English speakers use it in that sense? I think the simplest what-to-do is simply to move to "billiards", on the basis of it being the common name for the subject, and the predominant sense of the term; to billiards-with-some-parenthical-qualifier would be my second preference (by a distance proportionate to the unnaturalness of the term involved). "Billiards (all-in game)" would be a little quaint-sounding, but not utterly infeasible. Alai 12:29, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
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- The fact that US people don't say "American football" was kind of my whole point. It's not a term in general usage by the people to whom it applies (a criterion you raised), but WP has settled on it as a disambiguator, which is basically what I'm saying about "English billiards", a term that's so far sourceable while alternatives so far aren't. (And the Candian version of the rugby variant that North Americans mean by "football" dates to 1861 so it's hardly "very recent".) Agreed strongly that football should not go to some specific game, due to the widespread ambiguity. But I don't see that this leaves us in a different situation. "Billiards" presently redirects to cue sport which is evolving into a summary-style article that forks off in various directions. Given the quadruple ambiguity of "billiards" this seems to be a Good Thing to me. A radically different way of looking at it: If I lived in Botswana, and we played a game there in which one tried to intentionally scratch the cue ball, to score points, by caroming it off of an object ball into a pocket, and we locals uniformly referred to this game as "billiards", and called other cue sports by other names, would it be fair to insist that Billiards be the article for our game? Or shouldn't wikipedia have an article about this game at Botswanan billiards instead? Agree strongly that Billiards (English) and Billiards (English billiards) are non-starters. Re: "the French connection" - I'm not sure I get the point. We get the word "billiard" from French to begin with, as wel as the game-class itself, ultimately, but I don't quite see what that has to do with what the Wikipedia articles ought to be called. I guess the real question comes down to, "Should Billiards stop redirecting to Cue sport, because one group of people use it to mean a specific game with specific rules, despite the fact that another group of people use it more generically"? I honestly don't think this really is a US vs. Commonwealth English usage issue, because not all non-US English speakers use the term to mean "the game sometimes called English billiards" particularly. I guess I'm coming right back to "I don't know how to address your concern, but don't like the proposals to do so, so far". What is it about "English billiards" as a term (cf. "American football", "Canadian football") that bothers you, in the WP context, whatever some geographically-limited usages might be? Related anecdote: The Irish (real Irish, not umpteenth-generation Irish-American) owners of an Irish pub I know in San Francisco, use "pool" and "billiards" about 50/50 to refer to pocket billiards, and never mean English billiards when they say "billiards", despite speaking Hibernian-inflected Commonwealth English, if you see what I mean. Anyway, I think the article itself could use a de-'Mericanizing edit, per related concerns you raised. Maybe that by itself would be enough? — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 22:03, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
- If I might chime in, billiards and similar spellings, is used by a large portion of the world to refer to all cuesports (as well as historically). In some places, I have read (but never seen any citation of a reliable source), that billiards refers to a specific game and does not at all have a generic usage (I have actually no idea if this is really true across the whole of the UK). In the US it is often use loosely, most commonly by the public as a generic term for all games (but then again even this is deceptive; I would be willing to wager that more than 20% of the entire U.S. population only knows of eight ball and think pool and billiards are synonyms for just that game). By contrast, many aficionados mean any carom game, and a subset of those only know of three cushion so call that "billiards". Billiards alone more properly refers to all games than anything else, so it would not make sense to make it into the article title of one country's usage (which I'm not sure is even accurate). The move to cuesports was organizational (or so I thought), but for instance, if we have an article on (history of ____) it should be called History of billiards because that is the umbrella term most properly across the world, and very much so historically.--Fuhghettaboutit 22:45, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
- I'll try and dig up a suitable source, but it most certainly has the meaning I've suggested throughout the UK, and in Ireland, at least that I've encountered. See this page for an indication of the usage down-under. Come to that, if you google for "snooker and billiards" (or vice versa, with quotes), it's a decent bet that the user intends "billiards" in the "English" sense (if annoyingly hard to confirm). I think you have it entirely backwards as to what's "one country's usage", and what's the "proper" reference -- I don't see any argument for that beyond "it's what they're called in the U.S.", but they're not even their primary descriptors there, either. McC, I said at length, and by way of a number of itemised points, why I don't think the "football" case is at all comparable; I don't think you've addressed those at all. And no, I don't believe it's a "good thing" that "billiards" redirects to "cue sport" (which should surely be "cue sports"?), since that's to assert that the two are synonymous, which is specifically the U.S. usage, and makes no sense in the context of the UK (et al) usage. If it's not an article on the singular game, it should at least be a disambig page (which purpose is also served by having the former article, with a disambig strapline). Your "Botswannan billiards" example is a little off-the-point, to put it (disproportionately) mildly. I'd point out why in detail, but that didn't seem to get me very far with your "football" analogy. (And, I think I'd suggest it be called "Billiards (Botswanna)", though not before asking to see the reliable sources for your hypothetical.) Ask yourself: what does the term "billiards" mean, to those English speakers who use it systematically to mean anything in particular? And, what is "English" billiards called, by those why have cause to call it anything? I mention the French only because you mentioned people to whom the term primarily means "carom billiards": if not they, then who? (Didn't I just say that?) I ask again, what 'non-US English speakers' don't 'use the term to mean "the game sometimes called English billiards"'? (OK, I admit I came across some Canadian instances...) Are you citing the SF pub owners as representive of a "non-US" class of speakers? (I can readily conduct a vox pop of non-US-based Hiberno-English speakers...) I'd strongly prefer we stayed away from the whole family of "why does it bother you?"/ILIKEIT types of discussion, since I have have some residual hopes of articles being at the names they conventionally should be at, rather than what an super- (or not-so-super-) majority decide their personal prefences are, notorious counterexamples like the "U.S. Highways naming convention" fiasco notwithstanding. I also don't see how anything but a token de-'Mericanizing edit would be even possible (setting aside its insufficiency), if it continues to be obliged to use the U.S. descriptor throughout. Are you in effect just suggesting expanding the list of places that call the game "billiards"? (And explicitly or implicitly, the implication as to where it's called "English billiards"?) Alai 03:51, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
- I thought I had addressed the "football" issues; to be clear, Americans do not say "American football", unless they absolutely must, e.g. in a context like Wikipedia where disambiguation is needed; . And in that sort of case I think it would be plausible to call the game in question here "English billiards", even if you were English. Cue sport is called that instead of Cue sports (which redirs to it) because of WP naming conventions. You'll note that the article text itself uses the plural. "Billiards" remains ambiguous because there are way more players of carom billiards games than of English billiards, throughout the world, and they tend to simply use the term "billiards" unless they are being very specific (i.e. "I play three-cushion"). I honestly don't think that calling the present article is an Americanism, it's simply disambiguation. I'm not sure I can say anything else without just repeating myself. I'm sorry that I don't have better ideas that would satisfy everyone. I'm guessing this needs more input from other people over a longer time. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 20:31, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
- Shakespeare wrote the line for Cleopatra: "let us to billiards" (Julius Caesar) 200 years before [whatever we are to call this game] had developed. The Illustrated Encyclopeda of Billiards states that the word was in use in English printed works by 1591 with the modern spelling by 1598, and defines it as: "1. (game) A generic term for any game played on a billiard table, specifically one employing small solid balls... 2.=Carom Billiards... 3. In Britain, the game of English Billiards." Meanwhile, from the British English Cambridge University Press: "Billiards: a game played by two people on a table covered in green cloth in which a cue (= a long pole) is used to hit balls against each other and into pockets around the table." This is not to mention that all the numerous versions of the word in other languages, all meaning either the game in general or a specific other game (biljart (Dutch); billards (French); biliardi (Italian); biljard (Maltese) etc., ad nauseum). I am curious what the OED has to say but I don't have access.--Fuhghettaboutit 23:45, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
- And further, the Asian Games use the term "English billiards", despite the fact that any English speakers particpating would very likely come from a Commonwealth or Commonwealth-influenced English speaking pool (Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, etc.), unless someone from Guam or Samoa showed up. There's the real-world non-UK, non-North American evidence Alai wanted. I think this debate has kind of concluded, on the facts if not the feelings; though again, the article text itself should probably be written from a British perspective, leaving us with still that to-do item. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 07:53, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
- More discussion at stub naming guidelines.Her Pegship (tis herself) 15:45, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
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- Discussion never materialized there, actually. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 07:36, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
- And further, the Asian Games use the term "English billiards", despite the fact that any English speakers particpating would very likely come from a Commonwealth or Commonwealth-influenced English speaking pool (Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, etc.), unless someone from Guam or Samoa showed up. There's the real-world non-UK, non-North American evidence Alai wanted. I think this debate has kind of concluded, on the facts if not the feelings; though again, the article text itself should probably be written from a British perspective, leaving us with still that to-do item. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 07:53, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
- Shakespeare wrote the line for Cleopatra: "let us to billiards" (Julius Caesar) 200 years before [whatever we are to call this game] had developed. The Illustrated Encyclopeda of Billiards states that the word was in use in English printed works by 1591 with the modern spelling by 1598, and defines it as: "1. (game) A generic term for any game played on a billiard table, specifically one employing small solid balls... 2.=Carom Billiards... 3. In Britain, the game of English Billiards." Meanwhile, from the British English Cambridge University Press: "Billiards: a game played by two people on a table covered in green cloth in which a cue (= a long pole) is used to hit balls against each other and into pockets around the table." This is not to mention that all the numerous versions of the word in other languages, all meaning either the game in general or a specific other game (biljart (Dutch); billards (French); biliardi (Italian); biljard (Maltese) etc., ad nauseum). I am curious what the OED has to say but I don't have access.--Fuhghettaboutit 23:45, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
- I thought I had addressed the "football" issues; to be clear, Americans do not say "American football", unless they absolutely must, e.g. in a context like Wikipedia where disambiguation is needed; . And in that sort of case I think it would be plausible to call the game in question here "English billiards", even if you were English. Cue sport is called that instead of Cue sports (which redirs to it) because of WP naming conventions. You'll note that the article text itself uses the plural. "Billiards" remains ambiguous because there are way more players of carom billiards games than of English billiards, throughout the world, and they tend to simply use the term "billiards" unless they are being very specific (i.e. "I play three-cushion"). I honestly don't think that calling the present article is an Americanism, it's simply disambiguation. I'm not sure I can say anything else without just repeating myself. I'm sorry that I don't have better ideas that would satisfy everyone. I'm guessing this needs more input from other people over a longer time. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 20:31, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
- I'll try and dig up a suitable source, but it most certainly has the meaning I've suggested throughout the UK, and in Ireland, at least that I've encountered. See this page for an indication of the usage down-under. Come to that, if you google for "snooker and billiards" (or vice versa, with quotes), it's a decent bet that the user intends "billiards" in the "English" sense (if annoyingly hard to confirm). I think you have it entirely backwards as to what's "one country's usage", and what's the "proper" reference -- I don't see any argument for that beyond "it's what they're called in the U.S.", but they're not even their primary descriptors there, either. McC, I said at length, and by way of a number of itemised points, why I don't think the "football" case is at all comparable; I don't think you've addressed those at all. And no, I don't believe it's a "good thing" that "billiards" redirects to "cue sport" (which should surely be "cue sports"?), since that's to assert that the two are synonymous, which is specifically the U.S. usage, and makes no sense in the context of the UK (et al) usage. If it's not an article on the singular game, it should at least be a disambig page (which purpose is also served by having the former article, with a disambig strapline). Your "Botswannan billiards" example is a little off-the-point, to put it (disproportionately) mildly. I'd point out why in detail, but that didn't seem to get me very far with your "football" analogy. (And, I think I'd suggest it be called "Billiards (Botswanna)", though not before asking to see the reliable sources for your hypothetical.) Ask yourself: what does the term "billiards" mean, to those English speakers who use it systematically to mean anything in particular? And, what is "English" billiards called, by those why have cause to call it anything? I mention the French only because you mentioned people to whom the term primarily means "carom billiards": if not they, then who? (Didn't I just say that?) I ask again, what 'non-US English speakers' don't 'use the term to mean "the game sometimes called English billiards"'? (OK, I admit I came across some Canadian instances...) Are you citing the SF pub owners as representive of a "non-US" class of speakers? (I can readily conduct a vox pop of non-US-based Hiberno-English speakers...) I'd strongly prefer we stayed away from the whole family of "why does it bother you?"/ILIKEIT types of discussion, since I have have some residual hopes of articles being at the names they conventionally should be at, rather than what an super- (or not-so-super-) majority decide their personal prefences are, notorious counterexamples like the "U.S. Highways naming convention" fiasco notwithstanding. I also don't see how anything but a token de-'Mericanizing edit would be even possible (setting aside its insufficiency), if it continues to be obliged to use the U.S. descriptor throughout. Are you in effect just suggesting expanding the list of places that call the game "billiards"? (And explicitly or implicitly, the implication as to where it's called "English billiards"?) Alai 03:51, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
- If I might chime in, billiards and similar spellings, is used by a large portion of the world to refer to all cuesports (as well as historically). In some places, I have read (but never seen any citation of a reliable source), that billiards refers to a specific game and does not at all have a generic usage (I have actually no idea if this is really true across the whole of the UK). In the US it is often use loosely, most commonly by the public as a generic term for all games (but then again even this is deceptive; I would be willing to wager that more than 20% of the entire U.S. population only knows of eight ball and think pool and billiards are synonyms for just that game). By contrast, many aficionados mean any carom game, and a subset of those only know of three cushion so call that "billiards". Billiards alone more properly refers to all games than anything else, so it would not make sense to make it into the article title of one country's usage (which I'm not sure is even accurate). The move to cuesports was organizational (or so I thought), but for instance, if we have an article on (history of ____) it should be called History of billiards because that is the umbrella term most properly across the world, and very much so historically.--Fuhghettaboutit 22:45, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
- The fact that US people don't say "American football" was kind of my whole point. It's not a term in general usage by the people to whom it applies (a criterion you raised), but WP has settled on it as a disambiguator, which is basically what I'm saying about "English billiards", a term that's so far sourceable while alternatives so far aren't. (And the Candian version of the rugby variant that North Americans mean by "football" dates to 1861 so it's hardly "very recent".) Agreed strongly that football should not go to some specific game, due to the widespread ambiguity. But I don't see that this leaves us in a different situation. "Billiards" presently redirects to cue sport which is evolving into a summary-style article that forks off in various directions. Given the quadruple ambiguity of "billiards" this seems to be a Good Thing to me. A radically different way of looking at it: If I lived in Botswana, and we played a game there in which one tried to intentionally scratch the cue ball, to score points, by caroming it off of an object ball into a pocket, and we locals uniformly referred to this game as "billiards", and called other cue sports by other names, would it be fair to insist that Billiards be the article for our game? Or shouldn't wikipedia have an article about this game at Botswanan billiards instead? Agree strongly that Billiards (English) and Billiards (English billiards) are non-starters. Re: "the French connection" - I'm not sure I get the point. We get the word "billiard" from French to begin with, as wel as the game-class itself, ultimately, but I don't quite see what that has to do with what the Wikipedia articles ought to be called. I guess the real question comes down to, "Should Billiards stop redirecting to Cue sport, because one group of people use it to mean a specific game with specific rules, despite the fact that another group of people use it more generically"? I honestly don't think this really is a US vs. Commonwealth English usage issue, because not all non-US English speakers use the term to mean "the game sometimes called English billiards" particularly. I guess I'm coming right back to "I don't know how to address your concern, but don't like the proposals to do so, so far". What is it about "English billiards" as a term (cf. "American football", "Canadian football") that bothers you, in the WP context, whatever some geographically-limited usages might be? Related anecdote: The Irish (real Irish, not umpteenth-generation Irish-American) owners of an Irish pub I know in San Francisco, use "pool" and "billiards" about 50/50 to refer to pocket billiards, and never mean English billiards when they say "billiards", despite speaking Hibernian-inflected Commonwealth English, if you see what I mean. Anyway, I think the article itself could use a de-'Mericanizing edit, per related concerns you raised. Maybe that by itself would be enough? — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 22:03, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
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- Solid demonstration that English people call it "English billiards", too, just like everyone else, when they have a need to disambiguate: ["The largest break ever recorded at English billiards was..." (non-HTMLized original version here). Wasn't even looking for it (was looking for info on the game of Indian pool instead); bet there are hundreds more if anyone actually did bother to look for them. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 07:36, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
