{"id":5016,"date":"2020-02-09T06:59:00","date_gmt":"2020-02-09T06:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/?p=5016"},"modified":"2020-02-09T14:03:03","modified_gmt":"2020-02-09T14:03:03","slug":"word-of-the-day-widdershins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/2020\/02\/09\/word-of-the-day-widdershins\/","title":{"rendered":"Word of the Day: Widdershins"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Today\u2019s word of the day, thanks to Julia McCoy of ExpressWriters, is widdershins<\/em>, an adverb meaning \u201cin a direction contrary to the natural one, especially contrary to the apparent course of the sun or counterclockwise: considered as unlucky or causing disaster\u201d (https:\/\/www.dictionary.com\/browse\/widdershins?s=t<\/a>). McCoy writes, \u201cThis is another way to say something is moving counter-clockwise or something is moving in the wrong direction. It is a much more fun way to say counter-clockwise and is most likely something you heard one of your grandparents or great-grandparents say. Many people do still use it in many poems and newly published books\u201d (https:\/\/expresswriters.com\/34-craziest-words-english\/<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to www.etymonline.com<\/a>, the word enters the English language around the \u201c1510s, chiefly Scottish, originally \u2018contrary to the course of the sun or a clock\u2019 (movement in this direction being considered unlucky), probably from Middle Low German weddersinnes<\/em>, literally \u2018against the way\u2019 (i.e. \u2018in the opposite direction\u2019), from widersinnen<\/em> \u2018to go against,\u2019 from wider<\/em> \u2018against\u2019 (see with<\/strong>) + sinnen<\/em> \u2018to travel, go,\u2019 from Old High German sinnen<\/em>, related to sind<\/em> \u2018journey\u2019 (see send<\/strong>).\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In looking at the etymology, you might be wondering what happened to the word with<\/em>: Doesn\u2019t it mean \u201caccompanying\u201d or \u201caccompanied by\u201d? Well, that word originally meant \u201cagainst,\u201d as www.etymonline.com<\/a> tells us: \u201cOld English wi\u00f0<\/em> \u2018against, opposite, from, toward, by, near,\u2019 a shortened form related to wi\u00f0er<\/em>, from Proto-Germanic *withro<\/em>– \u2018against\u2019\u2026, from PIE *wi-tero<\/em>-, literally \u2018more apart,\u2019 suffixed form of *wi<\/em>– \u2018separation.\u2019” What happened to it? \u201cSense shifted in Middle English to denote association, combination, and union, partly by influence of Old Norse vidh<\/em>, and also perhaps by Latin cum<\/em> \u2018with\u2019 (as in pugnare cum<\/em> \u2018fight with\u2019). In this sense, it replaced Old English mid<\/em> \u2018with,\u2019 which survives only as a prefix (as in midwife<\/em>). Original sense of \u2018against, in opposition\u2019 is retained in compounds such as withhold<\/em>, withdraw<\/em>, withstand<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many Americans know about James Naismith, who in 1891 invented the sport of basketball. Naismith worked for the Young Men\u2019s Christian Association (YMCA), and he was charged by the director of the Y where he was working with creating a sport that would give the young men in his charge something athletic to do so that they wouldn\u2019t quarrel during the winter, when going outside to play sports was impossible. Naismith used peach baskets and a soccer ball and created basketball.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But few Americans know about Naismith\u2019s friend, William G. Morgan. Morgan was younger than Naismith, but he also studied at the YMCA\u2019s training facility (later Springfield College). Morgan was working at the Holyoke, MA, YMCA, when he noticed that some of his members were not all that comfortable with basketball. It required a lot of running up and down the court, and despite Naismith\u2019s rules designed to removed physical contact, it still had a good bit of contact. Older members, and some less physically adept members, struggled with basketball.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Morgan probably knew that Naismith had considered other popular sports when he was dreaming up basketball, sports like soccer, rugby, football, lacrosse, and others. So Morgan thought about some of the sports that were less likely to lead to physical contact, sports like tennis, badminton, and handball, and thought about how to adopt the principles of physical training that he had learned into a new sport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He decided that he would place two teams (initially of 5) on each side of a net, and that the object would be to get a ball to the other side of the net. The net was initially 6\u20196\u201d high, and the playing space was 25\u2019 by 50\u2019, small enough to fit inside any gymnasium of the day. Because the teams were separated by the net, there was little chance of physical contact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The hardest part of the process was the ball. He decided that the basketball, invented by Spalding to replace the soccer ball initially used by Naismith, was too heavy for his new game. He went to the Spalding company, and a young designer named Dale Callahan came up with the perfect ball for the new sport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1895, Morgan introduced his new game to the directors of physical education for the YMCA and the organization\u2019s home in Springfield, MA. Dr. Luther Halsey Gulick, who was the director of the training school in Springfield, was so taken with the game that he asked Morgan to introduce the game to the school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On February 9, 1895, Morgan introduced volleyball. It was a hit. The only problem that any of the observers seemed to notice was the name. Morgan called in \u201cMintonette,\u201d perhaps because he initially used a badminton net and took some of his ideas from the game of badminton. But Professor Alfred T. Halstead felt that the name just wasn\u2019t right. It may have seemed widdershins to the athletic nature of the game. So he suggested a new name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the world\u2019s second most popular team sport, volleyball, was created.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The image is a screen grab from a YouTube video put out by HistoryPod. You can find the video at https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=EclLnVJ1rIw<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today\u2019s word of the day, thanks to Julia McCoy of ExpressWriters, is widdershins, an adverb meaning \u201cin a direction contrary to the natural one, especially contrary to the apparent course […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":5017,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[170,169,171,172],"class_list":["post-5016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-word-of-the-day","tag-invention","tag-sports","tag-volleyball","tag-widdershins","clearfix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5016"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5016\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5018,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5016\/revisions\/5018"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}