Quote:
Originally Posted by MooreteP
Playoffs versus Eliminations is my personal language crusade.
I am trying to help our denizens adjust their phrasing.
As a Game Announcer, I always have to be careful about the terminology.
Boulders, not Balls. Playoffs, not Eliminations. Championship Event, not Nationals.
I have called them Eliminations for 17 years. I still catch myself.
It changed last year. Playoffs. It's in the manual.
In the sports model, they are also called Playoffs, even if they are an Elimination tournament.
Please forgive me my OCD on this.
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Humans are humans. Language is language. You're fighting an up hill battle, yo.
Back in the day, every team played on Saturday in what was officially referred to (in the Manual even) as the "Elimination Tournament." Thursday was inspection/practice day. Friday was ranking day using 1v1v1 ranking matches -- 2 points for 1st place, 1 point for 2nd, 0 for 3rd. And Saturday was the double elimination 1v1v1 tournament day (the generalization of the more standard 1v1 double elimination to 1v1v1 was wonderful to behold -- and quite beautiful once you could see the structure ... but I digress).
As it turns out 1v1v1 games are prone to bringing out the worst in some folks and, after skulduggery at the (then called) Nationals* in 1998, Dean, Woodie & the Manchester Brain Trust (a.k.a. FIRST HQ) came up with (imho) the brilliant idea of alliances for 1999 and with it came the draft and the playoffs.
So you see, it is quite natural for folks to conflate the Elimination Tournament (which human nature & language being what they are everyone called The Elims) with this newfangled thing that kinda sorta replaced it called the Playoffs.
Yes, the OFFICIAL name is the Playoffs, but I am just not going to stop using The Elims. It is historic. It is accurate (yeah, I read the post above arguing otherwise, I'm not buying it). It is burned into my brain.
AND... ...GET OFF MY LAWN! You young whippersnappers. dang nabit...
Dr. Joe J.
*I DO try not to use "Nationals" any more though I fall into old habits at times. I do this for the same reason that FIRST changed its name from USFIRST to FIRST (though why it took them so long to ditch the usfirst.org URL I can never understand): It diminishes the international teams and FIRST itself.