[Ads-l] Antedating of golf term "mulligan" to 1919--in cricket!!

[Dan Goncharoff]

I understood the similarity as meaning a 'free shot".
On Jun 20, 2016 12:26 PM, "George Thompson" <george.thompson at nyu.edu> wrote:

> I would occasionally see a cricket game in progress when I would walk about
> Brooklyn.  However, I have never watched more than maybe 10 minutes of a
> game at a time. But  I'm not the sort of guy who won't share his opinion
> just because he knows nothing about the topic, so here goes.
>
> I think we could correctly rewrite this quotation as He may take a hack at
> it and knock it over the fence.
>
> Both baseball and cricket have strike zones, but in cricket the strike zone
> is tangible, a gizmo of three slender vertical sticks 2 or 3 feet high with
> a couple of tiddly little pieces of wood perched on top of them (the
> wicket).  If a cricket batter lets a ball go past him and it brushes this
> wicket even slightly, the little pieces of wood will be knocked off.  No
> umpire's judgement or habitual or occasional "wide strike zone" is
> involved.  In cricket, one strike is out.
> There is no foul territory in cricket, a ball hit in any direction can be
> in play, but the batter isn't obliged to run when he hits the ball, if he
> thinks he will be thrown out.  So cricket batters keep busy "protecting the
> plate' (in baseball terms), or "spoiling good pitches".  Nothing bad can
> happen, unless their hit is caught on the fly.
> The batter in this quotation seems to be a "bad-ball hitter" of the school
> of Yogi Berra or Vladimir Guerrero -- whose strike zones were "between
> their shoes and the bill of their cap".  Like them, when he swings at a
> ball that's off the wicket, he's not trying to hit one where they ain't,
> he's trying for a home run -- which, I believe, is worth 6 runs.
>
> So, I believe that a mulligan in golf is a do-over, which can't be the
> sense here.  Regardless of how much I may misunderstand cricket,
>
> GAT
>
> On Fri, Jun 17, 2016 at 8:10 PM, <sclements at neo.rr.com> wrote:
>
> > Using GenealogyBank, a full page article entitled "Why Our Baseball Is
> > Better Than British Cricket."
> >
> > _The Colorado Springs Gazette_ 19 April 1919, 12/3.
> >
> > "If it is a bad ball, "off the wicket," he may take a "mulligan" at it
> and
> > knock it over the fence, "out of bounds" they call it."
> >
> > Now, I'm not at all a cricket person so, if I've misinterpreted this,
> > please let me know.
> >
> > Sam Clements
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
>
>
> --
> George A. Thompson
> The Guy Who Still Looks Stuff Up in Books.
> Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
> Univ. Pr., 1998..
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org