Improving vocabulary

Decoding how to keep score in tennis

Posted on by Julia Tomiak / 0 Comment

One of the things keeping me busy these days (and preventing me from posting sooner in June!) is tennis. Child number four has embraced this as his number one sport, and in an attempt to show motherly support, and because I can’t stand feeling like I don’t understand what is going on, I’m trying to learn all things tennis. I’ve watched more matches in the past three months (thank you, high school tennis season) than I have in the rest of my 51 years. And I’ve already picked up a few things, like what it means to “break” your opponent.

My son executing the all important serve

However, there are still many things that confuse me, like what is a “ground stroke” and most pervasively… THE SCORING! Who came up with this confusing system of games, sets, and matches? And why does the scoring jump from intervals of 15 to 10? And why, when you have 0 points, is your score called “love?”

When I asked my son, he didn’t know, so The Word Nerd got down to some research. Here is what I found. (Warning – like most things in life, tennis scoring does not have a well defined explanation.)

The scoring in tennis

I tried to type this up, got confused, and then found the scoring system efficiently and humorously explained at Neilson Active Holidays. Here’s how they put it:

Tennis is played in points: Four points win a game, six games win a set, and two or three sets win a match. You can decide how long you want your game to be but most matches are played as best-of-three or five set contests. 

Service stays with one side for the duration of each of those four-point games, which – thanks tennis! – use a numerical sequence and French words that have no relation to actual values. 

The sequence is:

0 points = love 
1 point = 15 
2 points = 30 
3 points = 40
4 points = game 

And that’s it! 

Thanks again to tennis history you must win a game by at least two points, so if the two sides are drawn at 40 – 40 then “deuce” is called. The winner of the next point is awarded “advantage”, and can then win the game by taking the next point or be brought back to deuce if their opponent scores. There is no limit in the rules to the number of times players can tie at deuce.

Neilson Active Holidays

Oof. At the region semifinals, my son and his doubles partner went to deuce almost every game. The match took over two hours, but it was very exciting. As you can see, the scoring system is not intuitive or consistent. It’s also hard to follow because, in the case of high school tennis, there is no score board and often you cannot hear or the athletes do not call out the score. I even used a notepad to keep tally marks and still got the score messed up. Surely I will get better at this with time and practice. Luckly, child #4 is just a freshman.

The history of tennis scoring

Where did this crazy system of scoring come from? The short answer: nobody knows.

A longer answer has a bit more information but no more clarity.

Elizabeth Wilson, author of Love Game: A History of Tennis, from Victorian Pastime to Global Phenomenon, told Time.com in 2019, “I don’t think anybody really knows how it started or why it developed how it did.” Wilson says part of what makes the sport romantic and interesting is the history behind it that isn’t really history. More like legend.

Our modern game of tennis probably originated in a game played in 12th century France called “jeu de paume.” Players hit a ball with the palm of the hand until rackets were introduced in the 16th century. The game was very popular among royals and played at court as well as by clergy and commoners. In 16th century Paris, there were more than 1,000 tennis courts in use!

The article “Why is tennis scored so weirdly” from Time.com offers some interesting ideas as to why each point in a game has such a wide variety of values (15, 30, 40…). Some theories include relating points to the minutes that have passed on the clock, the distance between lines on the court, and influence of scoring systems from other games. But no one knows for sure.

Another thing I don’t understand: why is 0 points noted as “love?” Perhaps it came from the similar sounding word l’oeuf from the French, which means egg, which looks like a zero. Or the Dutch/ Flemish word for honor, lof, which would have been used by players relating a tennis match to a battle. Incidentally, “love” has been used since the 18th century to mean nothing in other racket sports as well as some card games, like bridge.

The etiquette surrounding tennis is also (supposed to be) different from other sports. Overall, the matches I attended this spring were much more pleasant than most other high school sporting events I’ve been to. (However, cross country meets remain the most positive sporting enviroments I’ve experienced. 🙂 ) The high school tennis coach encouraged us to stay quiet during the matches and to applaud or cheer only when a player made an exceptionally good shot. It is considered poor form to cheer when a player makes a bad play and loses a point.

Moving forward with tennis

Some people think the odd scoring system keeps an aura of mystery around the game. Some even argue it gives it a certain amount of pomp and formality that separates the tennis fans “in the know” from other sports enthusiasts. Whatever the origins or reasons behind the rules, I am determined to master the scoring system, and perhaps some tennis related skills, so that I can appreciate my son’s play and perhaps hit the ball with him on occasion.

Do you have other questions about tennis, or better yet, some explanations? I’d love to hear them!

Thanks for getting nerdy with me!

Improving vocabulary

What you need to know about “Replacement Theory”

Posted on by Julia Tomiak / 0 Comment

As a Word Nerd, I believe it’s important to understand the words and terms we use. In my little corner of the Internet, I like to pose questions, gather information, look at nuance. Consider it a nice alternative to Twitter. This week, I’d like to take a nerdy look at a frequently used term from recent current events: The Great Replacement Theory.

What is replacement theory?

On May 14, 2022, a white 18 year old man entered a Buffalo, NY grocery store and started shooting. Eleven of his 13 victims were Black. Ten victims died. Authorities are trying to determine if a lengthy screed posted online was written by the shooter. That screed includes references to “white replacement” as well as “white genocide.”

So what do these loaded phrases mean?

According to multiple sources, replacement theory is a belief that there is an active, ongoing, and secret effort to replace white populations with non-white people in white majority countries. This effort is supposedly perpetuated by elites or globalists. Some followers of the theory accuse Jews of plotting the effort.

close up photo of wooden jigsaw map
Photo by Anthony Beck on Pexels.com

The term “the great replacement” was originally coined by Renaud Camus, a French man who published a book in 2010 called Le Grand Remplacement. It in, Camus asserts that Europe is being invaded by Black and Brown immigrants from Africa. His ideas sparked a far right, anti immigrant movement in Europe often called the “identitarian movement.”

Camus said he was influenced by Jean Raspail, the author of a 1973 dystopian novel The Camp of Saints in which starving third world refugees overrun Europe. The book went out of print, but in 1994, John Tanton’s publishing house, The Social Contract Press, brought it back into circulation. Tanton is considered a modern day leader of the anti-immigrant movement. He has founded several anti immigration groups in America, including Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) and the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS).

The history of replacement theory

Concerns about white replacement or white extinction have been around since at least the 19th century in both America and Europe. In 1892, British/Australian author Charles Pearson cautioned his readers that white people would “wake to find ourselves elbowed and hustled, and perhaps even thrust aside by peoples whom we looked down upon.” His book National Life and Character inspired American authors to write similar books, such as The Passing of the Great Race by Madison Grant.Grant warned of the decline and extinction of America’s “Nordic” racial demographic.

Grant’s work contributed to the eugenics movement, which is “the practice or advocacy of controlled selective breeding of human populations (as by sterilization) to improve the population’s genetic composition.” (Merriam-Webster). Advocates of eugenics wanted to control reproduction to preserve “superior” races and ethnic groups.

In the early 1900s, Harry Laughlin was a leader of the eugenics movement in America. He helped design a quota system for American immigration policy that made its way into the 1924 Immigration Act signed by Calvin Coolidge. (The provisions of this act were overturned in the 1960s.) Laughlin also supported forced sterilization laws that were passed in 31 states plus D.C. and Puerto Rico. NPR reported in 2016 that 70,000 Americans, many of them women of color, were sterilized during the 20th century. Eugenics ideology spread around the world, and it permeated Nazi policies during the 1930s and 1940s. Eugenics gained notoriety later in the 20th century because of this association Nazi activities.

How replacement theory is showing itself today

Now, ideas about “white replacement” and “white genocide” fertilize the seeds sown by men like Laughlin, Grant, and Pearson. “White genocide” is a term recently coined by white supremacist leader David Lane. He wrote “The White Genocide Manifesto” while serving time in a U.S. prison for crimes he committed while active with the white supremacist terror group The Order. White genocide is also mentioned in the online screed attributed to the Buffalo shooter.

People concerned with white genocide fear that non-white immigration, mixed race families, abortion, same sex relationships, and drug and alcohol dependence will undermine White America with violence and crime.

Recent events show that not only is replacement theory still around, but also it might be gaining traction. Replacement theory, and/or white genocide, have been associated with several violent incidents from the past few years:

  • At the August 2017 rally in Charlottesville, VA, marchers chanted “You will not replace us. Jews will not replace us.”
  • The murder suspect in the October 2018 shooting at a Pittsburgh Synagogue cited replacement theory as motivation.
  • The shooter who attacked a mosque and community center in in Christchurch, New Zealand in March 2019 cited replacement theory in his screed .
  • The suspect who in 2019 fired shots in a synagogue in Poway, CA and set fire to a mosque in Escondito, CA also cited replacement theory as his motivation.

Ideologies like white replacement and white genocide are moving from extreme edges of American society into the mainstream. Tucker Carlson of Fox has talked about The Great Replacement on his show. And he is indoctrinating his audience with terminology and ideas from a replacement mindset. A study conducted by The New York Times reviewing five years of Carlson’s evening Fox show found 400 occasions when Carlson talked about Democrats actively seeking to change demographics, and therefore affect elections, via immigration policy.

Replacement ideology has been around for a while, but it seems to be getting more popular with Americans. Currently, one in three Americans believe that there is an ongoing effort to replace US born Americans, or legacy Americans, with immigrants for the purpose of electoral gain.

This is clearly an issue to keep an eye on. Many believe it has racist undertones and fuels racist violence. After doing much reading and research, I share that concern.

Learn more about replacement theory

If you are interested in learning more about replacement theory, white genocide, eugenics, or the people related to these ideologies, here are some places to start. As always, I recommend consulting multiple sources from a variety of viewpoints.

What do you know about replacement theory? Can you share other incidents/ articles related to it?

Thanks for getting nerdy with me!

Book reviews/Favorite Authors

What you need to know about The Bluest Eye

Posted on by Julia Tomiak / 2 Comments

The Bluest Eye, by the Nobel Prize winning author Toni Morrison, has been on the top of banned and challenged book lists for years. According to the American Library Association, it is frequently challenged because it depicts child sexual abuse and is considered sexually explicit. It was recently challenged at my children’s high school, so I took the opportunity to review the novel. I believe before you can properly discuss or make a decision about a book, you should acquaint yourself with it. Ideally, you should read it. Let me get you acquainted with Toni Morrison and The Bluest Eye.

About Toni Morrison

I’ve read other books by Morrison, including Paradise, Song of Soloman, and the first part of Beloved. I am always impressed and moved by her work. She powerfully wields language to convey history, emotion, and pain. Her prose often feels poetic. My favorite Morrison book, in fact one of my all time favorite books, is Paradise because of its multilayered themes and intricate descriptions. I have read it three times, and I still don’t think I’m getting everything that’s packed in there.

Morrison was born in 1931 in Lorain, Ohio. (Incidentally, this is where The Bluest Eye is set.) She read voraciously as a child, and in 1949 she enrolled in Howard University, where she earned a BA in English. She then studied at Cornell to earn an M.A. in English. She worked as a college professor and as an editor in the New York publishing scene before writing her first novel, The Bluest Eye. She went on to publish several books, including Beloved, which won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. In 1993, Morrison became the first Black woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. (Read more about Morrison at The National Women’s History Museum site. )

Throughout her life, Morrison experienced racial discrimination and segregation, and that heavily influenced her writing. Her words convey raw emotion, as well as immense intellect, and has won several awards.

The premise of The Bluest Eye

The Bluest Eye tells the story of Pecola Breedlove, an 11 year old black girl who prays for her eyes to turn blue so she can be like, and have all of the benefits of, blond haired, blue eyed girls. But Pecola doesn’t get what she wants, exactly. At the close of the book, the narrator says, “So it was. A little black girl yearns for the blue eyes of a little white girl, and the horror at the heart of her yearning is exceeded only by the evil of fulfillment.”

In the author’s note of the audio book edition of The Bluest Eye, Morrison says, “There can’t be anyone I’m sure, who doesn’t know what it’s like to be disliked, even rejected… most of us think of it as the stress minor or disabling, that is part of life as a human. When I began writing The Bluest Eye, I was interested in something else, not resistance to the contempt of others, ways to deflect it, but the far more tragic and disabling consequences of acceptance as legitimate, as self evident. There are some who collapse, silently, anonymously, with no voice to express or acknowledge it. They are invisible.” Pecola’s story is an attempt to “dramatize the devastation that even casual racial contempt can cause.”

Morrison created the character of Pecola because as a black girl, she represented the most vulnerable of society. Morrison says, “In exploring the social and domestic aggression that could cause a child to literally fall apart, I mounted a series of rejections, some routine, some exceptional, some monstrous, all the while trying hard to avoid complicity in the demonization process Pecola was subjected to. That is, I did not want to dehumanize the characters who trashed Pecola and contributed to her collapse. One problem was centering the weight of the novel’s inquiry on so delicate and vulnerable a character could smash her and lead readers into the comfort of pitying her rather than into an interrogation of themselves for the smashing.”

These are the words of someone, who, contrary to allegations, is not trying to harm children, but who is obviously very concerned with their well being. The author’s note also reflects a thoughtful and skillful approach to narrative and novel writing as well as a deep knowledge and concern for history, society, and human nature.

What I liked

The poetic language of The Bluest Eye grabbed me from the beginning. Here’s an example:

My daddy’s face is a study. Winter moves into it and presides there. His eyes become a cliff of snow threatening to avalanche; his eyebrows bend like black limbs of leafless trees.

Toni Morrison, THE BLUEST EYE

I also appreciate how Morrison illustrates the danger of accepting rejection as legitimate. She encourages us to stop ourselves and each other, especially children, from buying into self-loathing. Morrison achieves a tenuous balance of calling the reader to examine their attitudes without damning themselves in the process.

Morrision develops compelling characters around Pecola by delving into their personal histories and showing how their experience could frame their point of view. Her presentation of people as a complicated mix of suffering, joy, and desire reinforces her attempt to explore the dangers of assumption and judgement – against others or against oneself.

Despite her serious subject, Morrison manages to infuse some humor in The Bluest Eye. The narrator bickers with her sister in authentic, childish ways, and the narrator’s mother bemoans housework as I have often done myself.

What I didn’t like

Sometimes, The Bluest Eye gives detailed backstory on characters I don’t care about. It pulls me out of the story and distracts from my concern for Pecola and the themes Morrison is trying to address.

Potentially offensive material

The Bluest Eye does include incestuous rape, some references to child abuse, and some sex. However, the focus isn’t on physical description of the acts, but rather the social and emotional ramifications of them. They are not gratuitous but rather necessary and fit in with the novel’s themes.

Recommendation

If you are interested in reading about history, women’s issues, or racism, The Bluest Eye is definitely a good, if sobering, choice. It is one of Morrison’s shortest novels and will give you a feel for her writing skill and the themes she explores in many of her novels.

By the way, the committee assigned to evaluate the appropriateness of having The Bluest Eye in the school library voted to leave it there. 🙂

Have you read The Bluest Eye or any of Toni Morrison’s other books? What did you think?

Thanks for getting nerdy with me!

Appreciating Poetry

A great poem for your pocket 2022

Posted on by Julia Tomiak / 1 Comment

Every year, The Academy of American Poets celebrates National Poetry Month during April, and each year they pick one day to especially encourage the reading of poems. This year, April 29 (today!) is Poem in Your Pocket Day. And I have a great poem by you.

It’s not long or intimidating or cryptic. (Many people shy away from poetry for fear of these things.) It is, like all good poetry, a collection of powerful words that provokes an image, an emotion, or a sensation, or all of the above. Its theme is extremely relevant for our time. The Academy of American Poets has several great poems featured on its website for poem in your pocket day, but I choose to celebrate this one.

Please share a favorite poem of your own in the comments below, or on social media. Use the hashtag #PocketPoem to join the fun!

Thanks for getting nerdy with me!

Improving vocabulary

What you need to know about Pickleball

Posted on by Julia Tomiak / 2 Comments

April is National Pickleball Month!

I first became aware of pickleball when friends returned from vacation raving about how much they enjoyed playing pickleball for the first time. They dubbed it “tennis for the middle aged athlete.” 🙂 Then my good friend Jo told me she has switched from playing volley ball to pickleball at least twice a week! Recently, when I tried to buy a dampener for my son’s tennis racquet, pickleball equipment took up much of the space on the tennis aisle. Finally, just this morning I heard the hosts of Make Me Smart discussing how pickleball got its name, and that pushed this Word Nerd over the edge.

So now you have it: a quick and dirty overview of one of the fastest growing sports in the USA and around the world.

Brief history of pickleball

Pickleball started on Bainbridge Island, near Seattle, Washington in 1965. A congressman and a successful businessman wanted to create a game to keep their families occupied while the men played golf. The game was intended to be fun and easy for anyone to play – kids and adults alike. Players used table tennis paddles to hit a perforated plastic ball across a net on an old badminton court. The ball bounced well on the asphalt surface, so they lowered the net to 36 inches, and the game was born.

In 1972, a corporation was created to protect the sport, and in 1976, the first known tournament in the world was held at South Center Athletic Club in Tukwila, Washington. It’s been growing ever since.

Why is it called pickleball?

There are two different “legends” around the unusual name of this sport. Neither one has anything to do with pickles. One suggests that Joan Pritchard, the wife of one of pickleball’s founders Joel Pritchard, started calling the game pickleball because it combines different sports, the way the pickle boat in crew combines oarsman from different boats. (The pickle boat is made up of leftovers after all the other boats have been filled.)

Another theory is the game was named after the Pritchard’s dog Pickles, who would chase the ball and run with it, but people who know the family say the dog joined the family after pickleball was invented.

Basic rules

Pickleball is played on a badminton sized court marked by two service areas on each side, as well as a seven foot no volley area running adjacent to the net on each side. Players use pickleball paddles make of wood or high tech aerospace materials and a small ball similar to a wiffle ball. Serves are done underhand, and the ball must bounce once before a player can volley it to the other side. This eliminates the focus on power that often dominates tennis and keeps the ball in play longer.

I have never actually played pickleball, but I am definitely intrigued. Anything that keeps me moving and having fun with family and friends is a win.

To learn more about pickleball, visit:

Have you played pickleball? What do you like or dislike about it?

Thanks for getting nerdy with me!

Who I Am

How to build bridges

Posted on by Julia Tomiak / 3 Comments

I was waiting in line outside of a Bank of America branch mentally preparing to clean out my father’s safe deposit box. He had recently died, and I was in the throes of managing everything that comes with the death of a loved one. Tears came easily those days. I stood in my fragile state on the sidewalk in line behind three people, all of us wearing masks and spaced six feet apart, waiting for the branch to open.

While we watched, a man walked from the parking lot to the front of the line and looked through the tinted glass door into the building. He glanced at the posted hours of operation, and planted himself at the front of the line. A man ahead of me in line called to the man at the door. “Hey, you need to wait in line like the rest of us.” The man at the door turned and yelled, “I have an appointment” followed by several expletives.

“It doesn’t matter, you need to wait in line,” the man in front of me said. The man at the door narrowed his eyes and approached the man in line. “You don’t know who you are dealing with. I will kill you, man. Don’t mess with me.”

I have several silly anxieties – fear of heights, fear of closed in places, fear of snakes. But in that moment, my legs shook with terror. Hate and anger seeped from the men’s bodies and heated the air around us. A third man got in the middle of the confrontation and tried to calm things down. “It’s not that deep, ya’ll,” he said. I was grateful for his attempts to find peace. I was also terrified for him.

His reasonable words didn’t help. The two men continued to exchange threats until bank employees opened the doors to let customers in. I kept a safe distance from the arguing men, although at least three times, I heard the man from the door shout death threats to the man who had been waiting in line. The situation finally resolved when the angry man from the door was ushered off to a cubicle and the man from the line was helped at a teller window.

A bank employee gave me access to my father’s safe deposit box and escorted me to a private room for viewing its contents. I closed myself in the room and sobbed, for the loss of my dad, for my fear, for the tension between those two strangers.

We need common ground

We live in a world where hostility, anger, and aggression color our rhetoric and interactions. So many times, I think to myself, how do we move forward from this? How do we get past all of the hate and posturing?

Fortunately, I’m not alone. I see articles and podcasts with titles like “Finding Common Ground” and take courage. Once, our pastor, Lon Tobin, issued homework during his sermon: find someone who you don’t know or agree with and have a conversation with them. Not to prove or persuade them to see things your way, but just to appreciate the complicated person sitting next to you.

If only we could issue nationwide homework.

The media –social and print and broadcast- wants us to see people in one dimension at extreme ends of a hypothetical spectrum. If we believe what the media sells, people are either smart or totally idiotic. They are patriots or engaging in treason. They have high morals or they are heathens. That’s what sells. That’s what holds attention.  And that’s exactly what fosters conflict.

But that’s not who we really are. Instead, we each embody a complicated mix of failure and success, intelligence and foolishness, compassion and reason. We rarely fit neatly into any category, yet we’ve lost our ability to appreciate nuance.  To move forward, we must get that back.

How to create safe space

My college aged daughter has taken to using the phrase, “I tried to create space to have a discussion about this.” I love this idea of making space for differing opinions, for things that don’t get solved easily, for holding conflicting ideas in the same hand. We definitely need more space, but how do we create it?

When I try to see someone as a whole person, not a stereotype or derogatory nick name or political symbol, I think about what makes them human. What do we share? Admittedly, this is hard in a moment of conflict, but if we practice this when things aren’t tense, we will be more able to do so when they are.

What do we share?

First, we all have emotions, for better or worse. When someone displays anger or hostility, instead of getting defensive or reactive, we can think about what might cause the behavior. Anger and hostility often come from loss, and we can create safe space by acknowledging the wounds other people carry. We didn’t necessarily create them nor do we have to heal them, but we should recognize them. And remember that we carry our own wounds that sometimes manifest in ugly ways.

Which gets me to my next point. We are all flawed, physically and mentally. We all walk around in bodies that bring us joy and frustration. We can connect over illness, pain and limitations no matter our political affiliation or ethnic background. Our mortal bodies unite us.

We also have mental limitations. We are prone to misinterpretation and self-preservation. Our memory sometimes fails us, our emotions mar our judgement. We must accept this about ourselves, and, perhaps more importantly, about others.

Finally, we are all driven by love. We have friends and family we adore and respect. Maybe we are lonely and looking for love. Most of us know the acute pain of losing someone we care about. The entanglements of love are, fortunately and unfortunately, something we can all relate to.  And another good place to start connecting.

Join me in creating space!

Maybe if the two men outside of that Bank of America branch could have stopped and thought about the needs, emotions, flaws, hurts of the other person, and acknowledged their own, they would not jumped to threats and hostility. Maybe not.

I couldn’t control them, but I can control me. I can approach every interaction with appreciation for the human being across from me – a person with valid emotions, wounds, and an imperfect body and mind, just like me.

How are you managing the hostility around us these days? Share your insights in the comments.

Thanks for getting nerdy with me!