Pelota in California Politics

[Charlie]

Re: "threw a new pelota into the media scrum "

Pelota in Spanish is just a generic term for ball, not a specific jai lai
term.  Scrum is a rugby term.  Was the author saying that there is now an
Hispanic twist to this political issue because the latest complaint comes
from an Hispanic woman?

Charles J. Cunningham

mailto:cjc3esq at comcast.net

Save the whales,
            collect the whole set.


----- Original Message -----
From: "John McChesney-Young" <panis at PACBELL.NET>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Monday, October 06, 2003 10:44 PM
Subject: Pelota in California Politics


> An article by John Simerman in yesterday's _Contra Costa [California]
> Times_, "Woman wanted a word with Arnold," opened with:
>
>
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/cctimes/content_syndication/local_news/6937917.htm
>
> MODESTO -Who was that woman in red?
>
> And what's her connection with Arnold?
>
> No one knows, it seems. But the sudden appearance of a woman at a
> rally, pleading to speak to Arnold Schwarzenegger about a "very, very
> personal" issue, threw a new pelota into the media scrum that forms
> around a celebrity candidate.
>
> (end quote)
>
> I had not known the term before, but found that it's a synonym for
> the sport jai allai and a word for the ball used in it. I suppose a
> pelota into a scrum is faster than the traditional wrench in the
> works.
>
> A check of the web via Google turned up about 584,000 total hits for
> the term; English results narrowed it to 21,400. Switching to Google
> News generated only 13 unduplicated hits, of which one was a personal
> name, one a place name, and the others apparently directly or
> indirectly (via a movie title) related to the sport. None had the
> transferred sense of the CCT article.
>
> John
> --
>
>
> *** John McChesney-Young  **  panis at pacbell.net  **   Berkeley,
> California, U.S.A.  ***