Stupid other types of fencing!!!

[Black Jeebus]

We need to start a movement within the English language to call fencing, as in the yard type, something else. I hate when I go to google and get thirty sites for cheap cyclone fencing. Maybe if enough of us started calling it something like yafewa or something we could get an actual movement going?

[DHCJr]

Most of the language is borrowed in some form or other. Why do we need some random word. Why don't we use one already out there. We could borrow from the French and use Escrime. Consider French Toast, French Fries, French Fencing. That way when we get mad at the French again, we can change it to Freedom Fencing.

We don't have a Language Police!

Seriously, whenever I use one of the search engines I put in 'Sport Fencing' and that usually solves the problem.

[Black Jeebus]

When I first started taking fencing (way back in October) I made a joke with my friends that it wasn't an epee, it was a freedom sword.

[Musketeer]

Or when you're searching, add another word as a second criterion - like "foil", "sabre", or "epee". That should get rid of a lot of the backyard hits.

[pkt]

I have one of those 'vanity plates' for my car. In our province -BC -we're allowed only max 6 characters on the plate. So I have had "ESCRIM" since 1985.

In the recent CSC#2 in Vancouver, all the French speakers quizzed me about the missing "E"...

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I surmise the use of 'fencing' for our sport is because when we defend, wour action is not much diif't from putting up 'fencing' against any incoming attacks...


PK

[Soldier]

Fencing is both defense and offense - so they kept just the -fense part of it. The spelling matched in older versions of English.

[The0ne]

I know the german word for fencing is fechten, so I'm guess that the english word goes back to earlier roots.

[Soldier]

How does the German fechten relate to the German words for offense and defense? Or, more appropriately, how does the Old German word for fencing relate to the Old German words for offense and defense? I am actually curious here; I don't know the answer.

[PeterGustafsson]

Hi!

Originally posted by Soldier
How does the German fechten relate to the German words for offense and defense? Or, more appropriately, how does the Old German word for fencing relate to the Old German words for offense and defense? I am actually curious here; I don't know the answer.

The Swedish word for fencing is "fäktning", with a pronounciation somewhat close to "fechten". The Swedish words for offense (anfall) and defence (försvar) are not similar to fäktning. However, the Icelandic word "skylmingar" is similar to the Icelandic word for "defending oneself", and to an archaic Swedish word for the same, "skärma".

Swedish and Icelandic are North Germanic languages, while german and English are West Germanic. English stand out in one way - among these four languages, it is the one that has incorporated by far the most terms from other languages. That makes the tracing of word etymologies in English especially difficult. Icelandic is especiialy useful to study, since it is the Germanic language that has changes the least the last 1000 years, so it gives the best present available version of what the Germanic language was like before is started to split off into several differences. Present-day Icelanders can understand written English from the time of the battle of Hastings.

Have a nice time!

Peter Gustafsson