Shot put

[Jonathan Lighter]

The ball was indeed a "shotput" to me as well and around the same time.

  JL

Charles Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Charles Doyle
Subject: Shot put
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At least as far back as my own youth c1960, the big iron ball was commonly referred to as a "shot put" (thence the redundant "throw the shot put"), though some of us--language geeks impersonating jocks--"knew better." No doubt the oddity of the verb "put" (in that sense) gave rise to the confusion.

Anyhow, I am astonished to discover that the OED omits any record of the term "shot put"--even in its "correct" application to the athletic activity, which has been an Olympic event from the beginning of the modern games in 1896. Are the English still miffed that the Americans triumphed in the shot put that year (and in most subsequent Olympic Games)?

--Charlie
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