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#1
09-01-2006, 11:55 AM
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Trivia about Upset
So... I'm watching this Robert Wuhl thing about how myth gets turned into "fact" and he just said that "upset" as in a "sporting upset" actually traces to Man O' War's loss to Upset, and that prior to that it just meant upset as in "emotionally upset." Does anything know if this is true? I'm going to Google...
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#2
09-01-2006, 11:56 AM
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no one really knows for sure....a lot of people said that for a lot of years that upset came from the race, but not long ago i saw others claimed it had been used before that race.
__________________
Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren't very new at all. Abraham Lincoln
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#3
09-01-2006, 11:57 AM
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Never mind; too good to be true. From wordorigins.com:
<<Upset One of the legendary origins of sports terminology is that the term upset, meaning an unexpected defeat of one favored to win, is from a classic 1919 horse race that pitted Man o'War, probably the greatest race horse of all time, against an unlikely opponent named Upset. During his career, Man o'War lost only one race, the 13 August 1919 Stanford Memorial at Saratoga. Man o'War was heavily favored to win, but lost to a horse named Upset. This, the legend goes, is where the sports term upset comes from. Man o'War would face Upset in five other races, winning every one, but this one loss early in his career would be the one to make lexicographic history. Most lexicographers and etymologists thought the story too good to be true, but no one could disprove it. Sporting usages of upset prior to 1919 just could not be found. Then in late 2002, researcher George Thompson, using the newly available tools of full-text online searching of the New York Times databases, turned up a string of sporting usages of upset dating back to the mid-19th century. Thompson traced the verb to upset to 1865 and the noun to 1877. There are numerous uses of the term in 19th century sportswriting, proving beyond a doubt that it was well-established by the time Man o'War lost his only race. Upset did not father a term, he was just well named.>>
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#4
09-01-2006, 11:59 AM
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Though I'm sure it's yet another reason for BB to hate the New York Times-- shooting down a perfectly good sports legend! Damn the Times and its left-leaning full-text outline databases!
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#5
09-01-2006, 01:25 PM
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Ez
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#6
09-01-2006, 09:24 PM
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Great, now I have "Airplane!" lines stuck in my head. Thanks a lot.
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#7
09-01-2006, 11:48 PM
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2. Anyone who knows thoroughbred racing history ... knows that the writer of the first anecdote doesn't. There was nothing "unlikely" about Upset defeating Man O' War that day ... he was the second best colt in that crop ... and ... having previously finished second to Man O' War ... there was nothing particularly unusual about his winning the Sanford ... since Man O' War was giving him 15 pounds that day ... and was himself only bet down to 1-2 in only his seventh start ... not 1-20. Upset finished second to Man O' War three more times ... defeating all the other top colts in that crop ... and also finished second in the Kentucky Derby. His defeat of Man O' War was not some great "upset" on that day ... it only became notable in retrospect after Man O' War won all the rest of his races. 3. The word "upset" ... to mean a surprise turn of events ... goes back even further in the 19th century than the sports usages cited in the article. So ... there never was a "perfectly good sports legend" ... from my highly knowledgable perspective ... but ... ... I do understand why I'm always near the surface of everyone's thoughts.
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#8
09-02-2006, 06:57 AM
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No, "surly" was what I mennt. And, "Airplane!" lines kicking around in your head can be a real problem. As to the controversy over the term "upset", BB, the NYT and LH are all wrong, it came from the race...let us, the poor ignorant masses, have our one little story. Ez
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#9
09-02-2006, 08:19 AM
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Is there a link to Thompson's article? It would be easy to mistake a use of "upset" in the sense of "to overturn" with the one we are talking about. In fact, the OED quotes an 1872 usage, "The light active boxer upsetting two stout gentlemen". But they apparently interpreted that usage to simply mean he knocked them over. Either way, the "Upset" story is a good one. Either we have the terrific coincidence that the only horse to ever beat Man-O-War was named "Upset", or we have the fact that a horse race resulted in a new word (usage) in English. --Dunbar
__________________
Curlin and Hard Spun finish 1,2 in the 2007 BC Classic, demonstrating how competing in all three Triple Crown races ruins a horse for the rest of the year...see avatar photo from REUTERS/Lucas Jackson
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#10
09-02-2006, 08:51 AM
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Surly: inclined to anger or bad feelings with overtones of menace; "a surly waiter"; "an ugly frame of mind" Surely: definitely or positively (`sure' is sometimes used informally for `surely'); "the results are surely encouraging"; "she certainly is a hard worker"; "it's going to be a good day for sure"; "they are coming, for certain"; "they thought he had been killed sure enough"; "he'll win sure as shooting"; "they sure smell good"; "sure he'll come" Believe it or not, I'm actually asking. "grumpy someone in the story" is kind of funny. I may steal it... And funny you mention the "let us have our story" because that was exactly the theme that was being addressed in this show Wuhl did-- when the legend becomes fact. Like that Paul Revere didn't do very much riding on that famous ride; he got stopped by the Brits pretty soon, but his name scanned better in verse than the other two guys, so when Longfellow wrote his poem, guess who wound up in the starring role? Pretty entertaining show, I must say. I sure hope the story about the origins of giving someone the finger was true, though... I liked that one.
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#11
09-02-2006, 09:02 AM
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Ez
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