gamesmanship = 'sportsmanship'

[Laurence Horn]

At 1:02 PM -0400 9/10/10, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>2002 Ruth Glancy _Thematic Guide to British Poetry_ (Westport, Conn.:
>Greenwood Press) 265: The famous old expression that the Battle of Waterloo
>was won on the playing fields of Eton summed up the long-held belief that
>the principles of gamesmanship and good manners taught in the schools of
>young gentlemen were all that were needed to defeat the barbarous enemy.
>
>The association of "gamesmanship" with "good manners" and "young gentlemen"
>in opposition to the "barbarous enemy,"  as well as the general context of
>the passage, scotches the idea that what's meant is the usual sense of
>"gamesmanship."
>
>In 2002  Prof. Glancy was Associate Professor of English at Concordia
>University in Alberta.
>
And with this innovative ameliorated sense in mind, Ms. Glancy would
be less likely to commit the malapropism of the basketball announcer
who commented yesterday on the "gamesmanshit" of the two coaches
quibbling about the outcome of the 1972 Olympics medal game.

I see the OED has only one entry for "gamesmanship", 'Skill in
winning games, esp. by means that barely qualify as legitimate'.  The
last cite at the entry contrasts the two traits from Jon's  subject
line:

1967 Times 8 Apr. 13/6 Sportsmanship..is a switched-off word that has
lost ground to gamesmanship.

LH

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