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Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2007Bumble-puppy
Hello: Any idea as to the origins and meaning of "Bumble-puppy"? ---------- The Director and his students stood for a short time watching a game of Centrifugal Bumble-puppy. Twenty children were grouped in a circle round a chrome steel tower. A ball thrown up so as to land on the platform at the top of the tower rolled down into the interior, fell on a rapidly revolving disk, was hurled through one or other of the numerous apertures pierced in the cylindrical casing, and had to be caught. Aldous Huxley, Brave New World, p. 37 ---------- Thanks. Marius Hancu > Hello: > [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > Aldous Huxley, Brave New World, p. 37 > ---------- I suspect he made it up. If it were commonly known, he wouldn't've had to go on to explain it.  SignatureSML >> Hello: >> [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > I suspect he made it up. If it were commonly known, he wouldn't've had > to go on to explain it. No, he may have made up that specific version, but he didn't make up the name or the general notion. I lack authority for this claim, but I'm sure of it. . . yep, it used to mean something else, but here's OED on this sort of meaning: < c. A game in which a ball slung to a post is struck with a racket by each player in opposite directions, the object being to wind the string entirely round the post; also, the post so used. 1900 L. B. WALFORD One of Ourselves xiv, They had had a great game of 'bumble-puppy'. a1918 J. T. B. MCCUDDEN Five Yrs. R.F.C. (1919) xii. 227 We had a wonderful game called 'Bumble-puppy', which one played with tennis rackets. 1940 M. SADLEIR Fanny by Gaslight I. 43 One of the boys seized a chance to occupy the bumble-puppy... It was great fun hitting the ball in its string-bag so that it wound tightly round the pole.> The ball-on-a-string-on-a-post appears every so often in different commercial forms with other names: we had one of them fifty years ago, and another fifteenish years back, but I can't remember the trade-names. SignatureMike. -- Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com > Hello: > [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > Thanks. > Marius Hancu bumblepuppy 1a) the old game of nine-holes b) whist or bridge played without a system 2) a game in which a ball slung to a post is struck with a racket by each player in opposite directions, the object being to wind the string entirely around the post; also the post so used Huxley's version seems to be his own invention for the book. > Hello: > > Any idea as to the origins and meaning of "Bumble-puppy"? [snip] You've received some responses which are supported by OED -- there's a bit more elaboration in the big dic's entry for bumble-puppy: [Derivation unknown. Cf. bumble v.2] a. An old game resembling bagatelle, but played out of doors with marbles or 'dumps' of lead; nine-holes. b. Applied humorously to whist played unscientifically. Also of bridge. Also attrib. 1801 Strutt Sports & Past. iii. vii. 242 note. 1884 Sat. Rev. 25 Oct. 520 'Bumble puppy' or domestic whist at shilling points. 1885 Longm. Mag. VI. 597 A common form of home whist-called by Pembridge, Bumblepuppy. 1936 E. Culbertson Contract Bridge Complete i. 34 Persons who claim they 'play no conventions' either play bumble-puppy Bridge or do play conventions that are tacitly understood. 1947 W. S. Maugham Creatures of Circumstance 104 Templeton isn't the sort of chap to play bumble-puppy bridge with a girl like that unless he's getting something out of it. c. A game in which a ball slung to a post is struck with a racket by each player in opposite directions, the object being to wind the string entirely round the post; also, the post so used. 1900 L. B. Walford One of Ourselves xiv, They had had a great game of 'bumble-puppy'. a1918 J. T. B. McCudden Five Yrs. R.F.C. (1919) xii. 227 We had a wonderful game called 'Bumble-puppy', which one played with tennis rackets. 1940 M. Sadleir Fanny by Gaslight i. 43 One of the boys seized a chance to occupy the bumble-puppy... It was great fun hitting the ball in its string-bag so that it wound tightly round the pole. [end excerpt] Aloha ~~~ Ozzie Maland ~~~ San Diego On Jan 24, 11:06 pm, "tinwhistler" <ozziemal...@post.harvard.edu> wrote: > c. A game in which a ball slung to a post is struck with a racket by > each player in opposite directions, the object being to wind the string [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > great fun hitting the ball in its string-bag so that it wound tightly > round the pole. Tennis round the pole? This seems the closest, IMO. Thank you all. Marius Hancu > On Jan 24, 11:06 pm, "tinwhistler" <ozziemal...@post.harvard.edu> > wrote: [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > > This seems the closest, IMO. Or, viewed the other way round, tetherball with rackets. SignatureRoland Hutchinson Will play viola da gamba for food. NB mail to my.spamtrap [at] verizon.net is heavily filtered to remove spam. If your message looks like spam I may not see it. > c. A game in which a ball slung to a post is struck with a racket by > each player in opposite directions, the object being to wind the string > entirely round the post; also, the post so used. That's tetherball. Except you just use your hands. Picture: http://www.familyfellowship.net/06_22_2006_080033502%5CTetherball.jpg SignatureBest -- Donna Richoux > Picture: > http://www.familyfellowship.net/06_22_2006_080033502%5CTetherball.jpg I'll always like pictures. Thanks, Donna. Marius Hancu > Hello: > [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > Aldous Huxley, Brave New World, p. 37 > ---------- I recently saw a simpler version of this on a playground. There was a short tower with a funnel-like thing at the top and four exit holes beneath. I assume the idea is to throw a ball into the funnel; it would emerge more or less randomly from one of the four holes, to be caught by one of a group of kids around the contraption. SignatureRay (remove the Xs to reply) |
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