Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Backstop

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    Backstop

    What do other European countries call this? They don't play much cricket or baseball. Please tell me it's not "Das Backstop".

    To me it conjures up memories of kids' games, standing well behind the keeper, picking the daisies, diving in dog poo, jumpers for stumps ...

    Obviously it should be "longstop" but Yankee imperialism won out.

    #2
    Originally posted by tee rex View Post
    Please tell me it's not "Das Backstop".
    Good news, it's not das Backstop.

    It's der Backstop.

    Comment


      #3
      Is it from baseball? I'm still not clear what a backstop actually is, I'd never heard the term before this whole debacle. Brexit-wise, I assume it means something like "safety net", in which case I wish they'd just call it that.

      Comment


        #4
        You don't need to know anything about any sporting origin to understand the term, do you? I've no clue whether it's from baseball or not, and I'd imagine the same goes for over 90% of British people.

        Comment


          #5
          What does the term mean, though? I only understand it in context.

          Also to answer the OP, it would appear the word doesn't exist in French (hence my confusion in trying to understand it, no doubt.)
          Last edited by Fussbudget; 12-12-2018, 09:10.

          Comment


            #6
            "De backstop" in Dutch. Saddening lack of imagination.

            Comment


              #7
              I agree that safety net is a much better term. To be honest, I'm not sure what it means exactly, but i would say that it's the wall/fence behind some kind of sporting activity that stops the ball going for miles - fence round a tennis court, wall behind the catcher in baseball, the wall that you'd station your makeshift goal in front of in football games, etc.

              Comment


                #8
                Theresa May likes to invoke Geoffrey Boycott but the Yorkshire cricketer she really wants is David Bairstow, the keeper who once stood on the boundary as a "backstop", for England v Australia. (Technically a "backstop" should be in addition to the keeper, but you'd be humiliated if you needed one at international level ... which also works as metaphor, I guess).

                Comment


                  #9
                  German speakers favor a pub by the river- bachstube.

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Safety net would be a more politically loaded term, though, as it would suggest that people in Northern Ireland need to be kept safe from the British Government.

                    Comment


                      #11
                      The correct term in cricket is 'long stop'. 'Backstop' is incorrect in the same way that 'bounce-up' is an incorrect name for a 'drop ball' in football. 'Back stop' is the correct name for the catcher in rounders. So there you are. Rounders.

                      And as an off-topic supplementary, in German who decides the gender of a word borrowed from another language?
                      Last edited by Capybara; 12-12-2018, 09:54.

                      Comment


                        #12
                        I did once declare it was das Tees, but I don't think it has stuck.

                        Comment


                          #13
                          Die Dasder, mostly.

                          Comment


                            #14
                            Originally posted by Capybara View Post
                            And as an off-topic supplementary, in German who decides the gender of a word borrowed from another language?
                            Good question. I'm interested too. Why, in French, is "le weekend" male, but "la fin de semaine" female?

                            Comment


                              #15
                              Seriously though, often the allocation of definite artices it is intuitive. With foreign words the usage might be determined by existing rules. If "der Stop" is already masculine, "backstop" is likely to be masculine as well. But with many anglicised words where no article suggests itself, it's a bit anarchic, sometimes with competing usages in currency until the most common usage of arbitrarily appointed articles winning. And sometimes that usage can also change.

                              Comment


                                #16
                                Backstop may well come from baseball, though it is rather outmoded

                                As ad hoc notes, it originally referred to the wall or other barrier placed behind the catcher to keep the ball within the field of play. It later came to refer to the chain link superstructure that performed that function as well as keeping foul balls hit behind home plate from threatening spectators on amateur fields.



                                In the 20th century, it was also a reasonably common nickname for the catcher himself.

                                It is now a reasonably common term in American businessspeak, particularly in reference to a commitment to provide financing if other expected sources fail to materialise.

                                Comment


                                  #17
                                  When I played rounders as a kid you'd have a backstop behind the batter to field the ball if the batter missed.

                                  Did no one else play rounders except me and Capybara?

                                  Comment


                                    #18
                                    Originally posted by Patrick Thistle View Post
                                    Did no one else play rounders except me and Capybara?
                                    Nah, I was too busy gaily propelling a hoop with a stick down the main street of town, as horses scattered and onlookers slapped their knees.

                                    Comment


                                      #19
                                      The correct term in cricket is 'long stop'.
                                      Long stop/longstop already has a meaning, different from backstop, in negotiations. It's the date by which the conditions for an offer must be met or the offer falls away (or similar arrangements where an offer is not involved).

                                      Comment


                                        #20
                                        Originally posted by WOM View Post
                                        Nah, I was too busy gaily propelling a hoop with a stick down the main street of town, as horses scattered and onlookers slapped their knees.
                                        I played.

                                        Comment


                                          #21
                                          Originally posted by Patrick Thistle View Post
                                          When I played rounders as a kid you'd have a backstop behind the batter to field the ball if the batter missed.
                                          Wait, so the backstop is a person now? The plot thickens.

                                          Comment


                                            #22
                                            Wasn't that the batstop?

                                            Comment


                                              #23
                                              Originally posted by sw2borshch View Post
                                              Safety net would be a more politically loaded term, though, as it would suggest that people in Northern Ireland need to be kept safe from the British Government.
                                              Isn't this why they had to send in the army in 1969?

                                              Comment


                                                #24
                                                Originally posted by Patrick Thistle View Post
                                                When I played rounders as a kid you'd have a backstop behind the batter to field the ball if the batter missed.

                                                Did no one else play rounders except me and Capybara?
                                                And me, definitely a Rounders term. Can recall a few times when the batter threw the bat as they ran off, hitting the backstop square in the face, that they did indeed become a batstop.

                                                Comment


                                                  #25
                                                  Backstop was definitely a rounders term for me.

                                                  The metaphor of the chainlink fence to protect innocent bystanders from getting smashed in the face if the participants fucked it up with a foul seems to be very appropriate in the current context.

                                                  Comment

                                                  Working...
                                                  X