Quotation about golf and a question about a word with missing letters W-m-n

[Dan Goncharoff]

Golf has been played at Wimbledon Common since 1865, and there were
conflicts between the golfers and other park users toward the end of
the 19th century, and I can imagine a joke being made about young
girls chasing after golf balls in the park. No clue about the "w-m-n"
abbreviation, however.
DanG



On Mon, Aug 1, 2011 at 7:39 AM, Garson O'Toole
<adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Garson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Quotation about golf and a question about a word with missing
>              letters W-m-n
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Golf is a game whose aim is to hit a very small ball into an even
> smaller hole, with weapons singularly ill-designed for the purpose.
>
> The saying above is often attributed to Winston Churchill. The
> earliest variant I have located is in Punch magazine in 1892.
>
> [PLDG] 1892 January 16, Punch, Confessions of a Duffer, Page 35,
> Column 1, Punch Publications Ltd., London. (Google Books full view)
>
> http://books.google.com/books?id=u_kCAAAAIAAJ&q=%22Golf+is+not%22#v=snippet&
>
> Almost everybody now knows that Golf is not Hockey. Nobody runs after
> the ball except young ladies at W-m-n! The object is to put a very
> small ball into a very tiny and remotely distant hole, with engines
> singularly ill adapted for the purpose. There are many engines. First
> there is the Driver, a long club, wherewith the ball is supposed to be
> propelled from the tee, a little patch of sand.
>
>
> List members have generously helped to decipher terms with missing
> letters in the past. I think that the term: "W-m-n" probably refers to
> Wimbledon the location of the oldest tennis tournament in the world
> which has been played since 1877. Is that plausible? Any idea why
> letters have been removed?
>
> Here is a link to an extended discussion of the quotation on my blog
> if this topic interests you:
>
> http://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/08/01/golf-small-hole/
>
> Thanks, Garson
>
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