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An Analogy to Football

Posted By: Taper_Mike
Date: Friday, 2 December 2011, at 12:22 p.m.

In Response To: Midboard: an alternate term for "opponent's outer board" (Nack Ballard)

An Analogy to Football

An analogy to the game of football should make it clear that any term based on the prefix "mid" or "middle" is going to be problematic.

Consider: the proposed "midboard" is a synonym for the 3rd quadrant. By analogy, the "midfield" in American football should refer to the "3rd quadrant" of a football field. That's the area between the 50-yard line and a team's 25-yard line. And note, just as Nack's "midboard" does include the midpoint, this definition of "midfield" does include the 50-yard line.

Of course, the analogy doesn't give the correct definition of midfield. In football, midfield is a region that extends roughly from one 30-yard line to the other, centered at midfield (i.e, the 50-yard line).

If you want to use "mid-anything" in backgammon, it ought to be centered (as closely as possible) around the midpoint.

Who Are Your Readers?

If you are trying to invent a specialized jargon that can be shared among the 200 or so experts who peruse these threads at BGO, then keep doing what you're doing. "Third quadrant" is my favorite among the suggestions presented in this thread. "Far outer board" is second best. (Admittedly, it is a groovy sounding name, don't you think?)

If, instead, you would like to reach a general audience, perhaps even a large audience (think Backgammon for Dummies), I would strongly urge you to stick to accepted terminology. "Opponent's outer board," while cumbersome to you, is just fine for the general reader. And it remains my favorite overall.

Christian Munk-Christensen made this point when he wrote, "I think it is silly going to great lengths to optimize the process of writing about backgammon, when it means losing the understanding of the reader (unless the reader has bothered to read and grasp the manuals first)."

Mike

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