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

[George Thompson]

DG: I understood the similarity as meaning a 'free shot".

Hm.  Yes.  That would bring it within shouting distance anyway of the
current sense.  It still lacks the sense of a do-over shot.  By the way --
I know less about golf than I do about cricket.

GAT

On Mon, Jun 20, 2016 at 12:59 PM, Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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
> >
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> 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