wales@ucla-cs.UUCP (09/28/84)
Here's a slightly different angle to the Canadian football's "single
point" (awarded for an unreturned kick into or through the end zone):
I have found several sources which claim that the official name for this
particular scoring method is the French word "rouge". Specifically, the
1983 CFL rule book calls it a "Rouge or Single Point", and the 1983 Gage
Canadian Dictionary recognizes this definition of the word too.
When I asked a Canadian around here (who happened to be a rabid CFL fan)
why the CBC and CTV broadcasts of the CFL games (shown on the ESPN cable
network) invariably called the play in question a "single" or "single
point" -- but never a "rouge" -- he replied that he had never heard of a
"rouge" and wondered where in the world I had picked up the term.
I wrote CFL headquarters in Toronto asking about the history of the term
"rouge" and why it had apparently fallen out of use. Their public rela-
tions department apparently couldn't tell the difference between "Why
isn't the term 'rouge' used any more?" and "What is a 'rouge'?", though,
since all they did in reply was to send me a copy of the 1983 rule book
with a reference to the section describing scoring!
Can anyone "out there in net-land" explain the origin of "rouge" as a
name for the single point -- as well as explain when it dropped out of
common usage (if indeed it has)?
In case anyone is wondering what in the world an American would be doing
with a copy of the Gage Canadian Dictionary, by the way, I picked it up
last summer while at the Toronto USENIX Conference.
--
Rich Wales
UCLA Computer Science Department
3531 Boelter Hall // Los Angeles, CA 90024 // (213) 825-5683
ARPA: wales@UCLA-LOCUS.ARPA
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