"English" in billiards (New York Clipper)

[Bapopik at AOL.COM]

In a message dated 3/23/2004 3:00:39 PM Eastern Standard Time, george.thompson at NYU.EDU writes:

> Folks:
>
> I have received the following question from a writer for ESPN Magazine:
>
> --For this article, "The Answer Guy," I'm trying to answer a question.   Sounds simple, but it never is. The question for this issue is: "Why is spin called 'english'?" You know, if you put a spin on a cueball and someone says, "That had a lot of english on it." Or tennis ball, or bowling ball, or even baseball. On down the line.
> --I am looking for an answer, a suggestion, anecdotes, jokes, anything.
>
> The best that the OED can do is 1869, from Mark Twain, and the entry doesn't include a definition.  The Dictionary of American English had also cited the Twain, and another passage (from the late 1880s as I recall) that included a definition; this defining quotation is omitted by OED.   HDAS doesn't give this sense at all.  And I don't see any other sense of the word "English" in OED that could be used to explain the
> billiards sense.

   The 1869 Mark Twian citation is on WRIGHT AMERICAN FICTION.  There's nothing earlier in that database (that goes to 1851).  I didn't see anything on the AMERICAN PERIODICAL SERIES ONLINE, or MAKING OF AMERICA.
   I took out several billiards books in the New York Public Library, but didn't see "English" anywhere.
   So I went to NYU and tried looking through the NEW YORK CLIPPER.  The CLIPPER, unlike the SPORTING NEWS, has _not_ been digitized.  Don't know why; it was the VARIETY plus SPORTING NEWS for the 19th century.  The CLIPPER had a billiard column in each issue.
   This slangy poem has no "English" in it:

   27 July 1867, NEW YORK CLIPPER, pg. 121, col. 1:
      BILLIARDS.
WRITTEN FOR THE NEW YORK CLIPPER.
Billiards is gamest of all games,
   And, 'tis a funny thing,
We say to friends, with truth, we count,
   And get them "on a string."
And what we think is queerer yet,
   We do upon our honor,
We never leave the table, still
   We get "around the corner."

'Tis never dry, the darling game!
   Who says so is a fool;
For should it signs of that but show
   Then wet it, make it "pool."
To say it's dull is nonsense pure,
   Why it our wits anoints,
For every time we play the game
   We're sure to make good "points."

Another thing the oddest is
   You'll find beneath the sun,
Tho' you stand still and play your game
   You're sure to "make a run."
And odder still; though 'tis a game
   That's played in large amount,
It is the only game of all
   On which there's much "discount."

It makes us of perception quick,
   A thing possessed by few;
For, as you know, the billiardist
   Does always "take a cue."
And billiards is a loving game--
   The balls themselves show this,
By giving right before your eyes
   Each other, oft, "a kiss."

May it glide 'long for years, 'gainst its
   Course be raised not a ridge;
But should there be, may it then go
   Over it on its "bridge."
May friends of it live long, and may
   Their lifetime not be marred,
And when death tries to shove them off,
   Oh may that "shove be barred!"


   I don't know what this "saving of English" means, but it's the best I've got through the end of 1867.

   5 October 1867, NEW YORK CLIPPER, pg. 20, col. 3:
   ...Dion received from Nelms a note, which, without vouchsafing a solitary explanation, conveyed the unpleasant intelligence that he would not be in Montreal on the 24th, nor, worst of all, on the 25th either.  This note which, as we learn, Dion has, in commemoration of the foolscap episode of his schoolboy days, seen fit to frame and hang up in his billiard room, contained the following rare "saving of English:"--"Joseph Dion--_Dear Sir:_ I cannot play the match.  Respectfully, E. H. Nelms."