On The Ball

I'm quite intrigued by sporting language. Bully off is a weird one. Bully off is the start of a hockey match, but why 'bully'? It's thought to come from the same term for a scrum in Eton football, whatever that is.

Tennis has a great selection of weird and wonderful words. Deuce comes from the old French word deus meaning 'two' and comes at the point in the game when two consecutive points are required by either player to claim the game. Most people think love is an anglicised version of the French l'oeuf meaning 'the egg'. However, its true origin lies in the phrase 'play for love' – for the love of the game, not the victory. Interestingly though, in cricket, to be out for a duck (meaning to be dismissed without scoring a run) derives from 'duck's egg' because of the similarity between the egg and a large figure 0 on the scoreboard.

The ring in boxing is, peculiarly, a square. If you go back in time, you'll discover matches originally took place in a circle, hence the ring.

This really is a fascinating area to look into – rowing has catching crabs, badminton has shuttlecock and, returning to where we began, football has nutmeg. Can anyone explain?