Missing Sense of "Basketball"

Charles Doyle cdoyle at UGA.EDU
Tue Jun 6 18:06:30 UTC 2006

Also, OED has "tether-ball" (both the ball and the game).

Curiously, it does NOT (apparently) have "dodge-ball,"
except in a quotation illustrating "murderball":  "We used
to call it dodge ball, but they call it murderball . . ."
(Toronto, 1986).

I don't know whether a particular kind of ball
is "officially" used in dodge-ball (or murderball!).  When
my child-peers and I used to play dodge-ball (by that name)
back in the 1950s, we would use a volleyball or soccerball
or whatever was available (even a basketball or football).

Which "-ball" compounds can designate either the sphere or
the game?  Basketball, baseball, football, volleyball,
tether-ball, dodge-ball(?)--others?


---- Original message ----
>Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2006 12:37:30 -0500
>From: "Mullins, Bill AMRDEC" <Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL>
>Subject: Re: Missing Sense of "Basketball"

>> The OED has an entry for the word _basketball_, but omits
>> very common second sense of the word, namely the ball
used in
>> the game.
>> Fred Shapiro
>OED does have the similar sense of:
>Golf ball
>Billiard ball
>Tennis ball
>Cricket ball
>polo ball
>Whiffle ball
>medicine ball
>lacrosse ball
>squash ball
>Doesn't have:
>Soccer ball (although the term is used in some citations
for other
>Bowling ball
>stoop ball
>"ping pong" is listed as having attributive senses, one
citation of
>which is "ping pong ball"
>"hand ball" does have a sense for a ball, but not the one
used in the
>game as we know it today

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

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