92-474: Croquet ( UK : / ˈ k r oʊ k eɪ , - k i / or US : / k r oʊ ˈ k eɪ / ) is a sport which involves hitting wooden, plastic, or composite balls with a mallet through hoops (often called "wickets" in the United States ) embedded in a grass playing court. In all forms of croquet, individual players or teams take turns striking the balls, scoring points by knocking them through
184-576: A West Germanic language that originated from the Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to Britain by Germanic settlers from various parts of what is now northwest Germany and the northern Netherlands. The resident population at this time was generally speaking Common Brittonic —the insular variety of Continental Celtic , which was influenced by the Roman occupation. This group of languages ( Welsh , Cornish , Cumbric ) cohabited alongside English into
276-559: A century as Received Pronunciation (RP). However, due to language evolution and changing social trends, some linguists argue that RP is losing prestige or has been replaced by another accent, one that the linguist Geoff Lindsey for instance calls Standard Southern British English. Others suggest that more regionally-oriented standard accents are emerging in England. Even in Scotland and Northern Ireland, RP exerts little influence in
368-574: A class have been popular in Western Europe back to at least the Late Middle Ages , with roots in classical antiquity , including sometimes the use of arches and pegs along with balls and mallets or other striking sticks (some more akin to modern field hockey sticks). By the 12th century, a team ball game called la soule or choule , akin to a chaotic version of hockey or football (depending on whether sticks were used),
460-436: A fixed order, and to strike the central peg. Each of these actions scores a point, with the maximum score being 26 points. The first four turns must be taken to play the four balls onto the lawn from one of two "baulk lines" defined as one yard into the lawn on the western half of the south boundary and the eastern half of the north boundary. After this, players elect at the start of each turn which of their two balls to play for
552-683: A full-time office staff which keeps regular weekday hours. The USCA provides information on starting a club and print resources, consultation on lawn construction, and maintenance. Croquet in the United States dates back to at least 1853, with the first match played at the Punahou School in Honolulu , Hawaii , while the first known croquet court in the nation opened in Nahant, Massachusetts , in 1859. Although croquet remained popular in
644-508: A greater movement, normally [əʊ], [əʉ] or [əɨ]. Dropping a morphological grammatical number , in collective nouns , is stronger in British English than North American English. This is to treat them as plural when once grammatically singular, a perceived natural number prevails, especially when applying to institutional nouns and groups of people. The noun 'police', for example, undergoes this treatment: Police are investigating
736-449: A hoop. The game ends when a player or team reaches a predetermined number of points. Several variations exist that differ in when and how a stroke may be legally played, when points are scored, the layout of the lawn, and the target score. Commonly, social games adopt further non-standard variations to adapt play to the conditions. In all versions, players of all ages and genders compete on equal terms and are ranked together. Two versions of
828-406: A lesser class or social status and often discounted or considered of a low intelligence. Another contribution to the standardisation of British English was the introduction of the printing press to England in the mid-15th century. In doing so, William Caxton enabled a common language and spelling to be dispersed among the entirety of England at a much faster rate. Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of
920-425: A point awarded to the owner of the first ball to pass through the hoop in the correct direction. After a point is awarded, all players move on to contest the next hoop. Balls that are played more than halfway to the next hoop before a point is scored are considered offside, and are moved to penalty areas. Golf croquet is the fastest-growing version of the game, owing largely to its simplicity and competitiveness. There
1012-659: A process called T-glottalisation . National media, being based in London, have seen the glottal stop spreading more widely than it once was in word endings, not being heard as "no [ʔ] " and bottle of water being heard as "bo [ʔ] le of wa [ʔ] er". It is still stigmatised when used at the beginning and central positions, such as later , while often has all but regained /t/ . Other consonants subject to this usage in Cockney English are p , as in pa [ʔ] er and k as in ba [ʔ] er. In most areas of England and Wales, outside
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#17327905024321104-520: A regional accent or dialect. However, about 2% of Britons speak with an accent called Received Pronunciation (also called "the King's English", "Oxford English" and " BBC English" ), that is essentially region-less. It derives from a mixture of the Midlands and Southern dialects spoken in London in the early modern period. It is frequently used as a model for teaching English to foreign learners. In
1196-447: A single turn. Advanced variants of association croquet give further penalties to dissuade skilled players from running every hoop with a ball on a single break , while handicap versions give weaker players chances to continue play after making an error. The extra turns, called "bisques" are effective in levelling the odds of winning. Golf croquet is played between two individuals or teams, each playing with two balls. The object of
1288-725: Is also due to London-centric influences. Examples of R-dropping are car and sugar , where the R is not pronounced. British dialects differ on the extent of diphthongisation of long vowels, with southern varieties extensively turning them into diphthongs, and with northern dialects normally preserving many of them. As a comparison, North American varieties could be said to be in-between. Long vowels /iː/ and /uː/ are usually preserved, and in several areas also /oː/ and /eː/, as in go and say (unlike other varieties of English, that change them to [oʊ] and [eɪ] respectively). Some areas go as far as not diphthongising medieval /iː/ and /uː/, that give rise to modern /aɪ/ and /aʊ/; that is, for example, in
1380-509: Is an especially large interest in competitive success among players in Egypt . By comparison with association croquet, golf croquet requires a smaller variety of shots and emphasises strategic skills and accurate shot-making. Games are shorter, balls are more likely to be hit harder, and 'jump' shots are more likely to be witnessed, where a ball is played to deliberately jump off the ground and over another ball. The American-rules version of croquet
1472-434: Is based on British English, but has more influence from American English , often grouped together due to their close proximity. British English, for example, is the closest English to Indian English, but Indian English has extra vocabulary and some English words are assigned different meanings. United States Croquet Association The United States Croquet Association (USCA) fosters croquet in all its forms, from
1564-795: Is included in style guides issued by various publishers including The Times newspaper, the Oxford University Press and the Cambridge University Press . The Oxford University Press guidelines were originally drafted as a single broadsheet page by Horace Henry Hart, and were at the time (1893) the first guide of their type in English; they were gradually expanded and eventually published, first as Hart's Rules , and in 2002 as part of The Oxford Manual of Style . Comparable in authority and stature to The Chicago Manual of Style for published American English ,
1656-492: Is no coincidence that the game became popular at the same time as the cylinder lawn mower , since croquet can only be played well on a lawn that is flat and finely-cut. By the late 1870s, however, croquet had been eclipsed by another fashionable game, lawn tennis , and many of the newly created croquet clubs, including the All England Club at Wimbledon, converted some or all of their lawns into tennis courts . There
1748-702: Is now in the Public Record Office . In 1868, the first croquet all-comers meet was held at Moreton-in-Marsh , Gloucestershire , and in the same year, the All England Croquet Club was formed at Wimbledon, London . Regardless of when and by what route it reached the British Isles and the British colonies in its recognizable form, croquet is, like pall-mall and trucco , among the later forms of ground billiards , which as
1840-470: Is played mainly in Canada and the United States and is the game most recreational players in those countries call simply "croquet". In this version of croquet, there are nine wickets, two stakes, and up to six balls. The course is arranged in a double-diamond pattern, with one stake at each end of the course. Players start at one stake, navigate one side of the double diamond, hit the turning stake, then navigate
1932-626: Is the MacRobertson International Croquet Shield . It is contested every three to four years between Australia, England (formerly Great Britain), the United States, and New Zealand. Other nations compete in Tier 2 and Tier 3 World Team Championships. Teams are promoted and relegated between the lower tiers, but there is no relegation to or promotion from the MacRobertson Shield. The current holders of
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#17327905024322024-656: Is the booklet The Game of Croquet, its Laws and Regulations , which was published in the mid-1860s for the proprietor of Eglinton Castle, the Earl of Eglinton . On the page facing the title page is a picture of Eglinton Castle with a game of "croquet" in full swing. The croquet lawn existed on the northern terrace, between Eglinton Castle and the Lugton Water. The 13th Earl developed a variation on croquet named Captain Moreton's Eglinton Castle croquet, which had small bells on
2116-514: Is the distinguishing characteristic of the modern game. The second theory is that the rules of the modern game of croquet arrived in Ireland during the 1850s, perhaps after being brought there from Brittany , where a similar game was played on the beaches. Regular contact between Ireland and France had continued since the Norman invasion of Ireland in 1169. By no later than the early 15th century,
2208-629: Is the dominant version of the game in the United States and is also widely played in Canada . It is governed by the United States Croquet Association . Its genesis is mostly in association croquet, but it differs in a number of important ways that reflect the home-grown traditions of American "backyard" croquet. Official rules were first published in 1894 by the Spalding Athletic Library, as adopted by
2300-547: The Chambers Dictionary , and the Collins Dictionary record actual usage rather than attempting to prescribe it. In addition, vocabulary and usage change with time; words are freely borrowed from other languages and other varieties of English, and neologisms are frequent. For historical reasons dating back to the rise of London in the ninth century, the form of language spoken in London and
2392-692: The Commonwealth countries , in the United States the sport devolved mostly into a backyard pastime with no universal rules. In 1977, Jack Osborn 's vision and enthusiasm led to the organization of five Eastern clubs, including the Croquet Club of Bermuda, Green Gables Croquet Club , New York Croquet Club, Palm Beach Croquet Club, and Westhampton Mallet Club. These clubs formed the core of the United States Croquet Association (USCA) and worked to develop rules which each of
2484-658: The East Midlands became standard English within the Court, and ultimately became the basis for generally accepted use in the law, government, literature and education in Britain. The standardisation of British English is thought to be from both dialect levelling and a thought of social superiority. Speaking in the Standard dialect created class distinctions; those who did not speak the standard English would be considered of
2576-514: The English language in England , or, more broadly, to the collective dialects of English throughout the British Isles taken as a single umbrella variety, for instance additionally incorporating Scottish English , Welsh English , and Northern Irish English . Tom McArthur in the Oxford Guide to World English acknowledges that British English shares "all the ambiguities and tensions [with]
2668-493: The Royal Spanish Academy with Spanish. Standard British English differs notably in certain vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation features from standard American English and certain other standard English varieties around the world. British and American spelling also differ in minor ways. The accent, or pronunciation system, of standard British English, based in southeastern England, has been known for over
2760-490: The Scots language or Scottish Gaelic ). Each group includes a range of dialects, some markedly different from others. The various British dialects also differ in the words that they have borrowed from other languages. Around the middle of the 15th century, there were points where within the 5 major dialects there were almost 500 ways to spell the word though . Following its last major survey of English Dialects (1949–1950),
2852-573: The University of Leeds has started work on a new project. In May 2007 the Arts and Humanities Research Council awarded a grant to Leeds to study British regional dialects. The team are sifting through a large collection of examples of regional slang words and phrases turned up by the "Voices project" run by the BBC , in which they invited the public to send in examples of English still spoken throughout
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2944-610: The West Country and other near-by counties of the UK, the consonant R is not pronounced if not followed by a vowel, lengthening the preceding vowel instead. This phenomenon is known as non-rhoticity . In these same areas, a tendency exists to insert an R between a word ending in a vowel and a next word beginning with a vowel. This is called the intrusive R . It could be understood as a merger, in that words that once ended in an R and words that did not are no longer treated differently. This
3036-463: The 1660–1685 reign of Charles II of England, Scotland, and Ireland and was played under the name of paille-maille (among other spellings, today usually pall-mall ), derived ultimately from Latin words for 'ball and mallet' (the latter also found in the name of the earlier French game, jeu de mail ). This was the explanation given in the ninth edition of Encyclopædia Britannica , dated 1877. In his 1801 book The Sports and Pastimes of
3128-629: The 21st century. RP, while long established as the standard English accent around the globe due to the spread of the British Empire , is distinct from the standard English pronunciation in some parts of the world; most prominently, RP notably contrasts with standard North American accents. In the 21st century, dictionaries like the Oxford English Dictionary , the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English ,
3220-492: The American game, roqueting a ball out of bounds or running a hoop so that the ball goes out of bounds causes the turn to end, and balls that go out of bounds are replaced only nine inches (23 cm) from the boundary rather than one yard (91 cm) as in association croquet. "Attacking" balls on the boundary line to bring them into play is thus far more challenging. Nine-wicket croquet, sometimes called "backyard croquet",
3312-479: The Earl even launched his own Cassiobury brand croquet set. By 1867, Jaques had printed 65,000 copies of his Laws and Regulations of the game. It quickly spread to other Anglophone countries, including Australia , Canada , New Zealand , South Africa , and the United States . No doubt one of the attractions was that the game could be played by both sexes; this also ensured a certain amount of adverse comment. It
3404-836: The English Language (1755) was a large step in the English-language spelling reform , where the purification of language focused on standardising both speech and spelling. By the early 20th century, British authors had produced numerous books intended as guides to English grammar and usage, a few of which achieved sufficient acclaim to have remained in print for long periods and to have been reissued in new editions after some decades. These include, most notably of all, Fowler's Modern English Usage and The Complete Plain Words by Sir Ernest Gowers . Detailed guidance on many aspects of writing British English for publication
3496-680: The European Golf Croquet championship, and in October, Hanan Rashad of Egypt beat Yasser Fathy (also from Egypt) to win the World over-50s Golf Croquet championship. Croquet was an event at the 1900 Summer Olympics . Roque , an American variation on croquet, was an event at the 1904 Summer Olympics . Croquet is recognized as the first Olympic sport to include female participants. In the 1900 Olympic croquet events, France claimed victory in all three competitions. Gaston Aumoitte won
3588-666: The Germanic schwein ) is the animal in the field bred by the occupied Anglo-Saxons and pork (like the French porc ) is the animal at the table eaten by the occupying Normans. Another example is the Anglo-Saxon cu meaning cow, and the French bœuf meaning beef. Cohabitation with the Scandinavians resulted in a significant grammatical simplification and lexical enrichment of the Anglo-Frisian core of English;
3680-865: The MacRobertson Shield are England, who won the title in 2023. At the Golf Croquet World Team Championships, eight nations contest the Openshaw Shield. There is promotion and relegation between Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3. The current holders of the Openshaw Shield are New Zealand, who won in 2020. The world's top 10 association croquet players as of October 2023 were Robert Fletcher (Australia), Robert Fulford (England), Paddy Chapman (New Zealand), Jamie Burch (England), Reg Bamford (South Africa), Matthew Essick (USA), Mark Avery (England), Simon Hockey (Australia), Harry Fisher (England), and Jose Riva (Spain). In April 2013, Reg Bamford of South Africa beat Ahmed Nasr of Egypt in
3772-559: The National American Croquet Association. American six-wicket uses the same six-wicket layout as both association croquet and golf croquet, and is also played by two individuals or teams, each owning two balls. Like association croquet, the object of the game is to be the first to pass each of their balls through all six hoops in both directions and to strike the central peg, for a total of 26 points. Unlike association croquet, balls are always played in
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3864-862: The Oxford Manual is a fairly exhaustive standard for published British English that writers can turn to in the absence of specific guidance from their publishing house. British English is the basis of, and very similar to, Commonwealth English . Commonwealth English is English as spoken and written in the Commonwealth countries , though often with some local variation. This includes English spoken in Australia , Malta , New Zealand , Nigeria , and South Africa . It also includes South Asian English used in South Asia, in English varieties in Southeast Asia , and in parts of Africa. Canadian English
3956-464: The People of England , Joseph Strutt described the way pall-mall was played in England at the time: "Pale-maille is a game wherein a round box[wood] ball is struck with a mallet through a high arch of iron, which he that can do at the fewest blows, or at the number agreed upon, wins. It is to be observed that there are two of these arches, that is, one at either end of the alley. The game of mall
4048-712: The South East, there are significantly different accents; the Cockney accent spoken by some East Londoners is strikingly different from Received Pronunciation (RP). Cockney rhyming slang can be (and was initially intended to be) difficult for outsiders to understand, although the extent of its use is often somewhat exaggerated. Londoners speak with a mixture of accents, depending on ethnicity, neighbourhood, class, age, upbringing, and sundry other factors. Estuary English has been gaining prominence in recent decades: it has some features of RP and some of Cockney. Immigrants to
4140-550: The UK in recent decades have brought many more languages to the country and particularly to London. Surveys started in 1979 by the Inner London Education Authority discovered over 125 languages being spoken domestically by the families of the inner city's schoolchildren. Notably Multicultural London English , a sociolect that emerged in the late 20th century spoken mainly by young, working-class people in multicultural parts of London . Since
4232-684: The UK, US, New Zealand, Australia, and Egypt; many other countries also play. Every four years, the top countries play in the World Team Championships in AC (the MacRobertson Shield ) and GC (the Openshaw Shield). The current world rankings show England in top place for AC, followed by Australia in second place, and New Zealand in third place, with the United States in fourth position. The same four countries appear in
4324-640: The United Kingdom , as well as within the countries themselves. The major divisions are normally classified as English English (or English as spoken in England (which is itself broadly grouped into Southern English , West Country , East and West Midlands English and Northern English ), Northern Irish English (in Northern Ireland), Welsh English (not to be confused with the Welsh language ), and Scottish English (not to be confused with
4416-465: The West Scottish accent. Phonological features characteristic of British English revolve around the pronunciation of the letter R, as well as the dental plosive T and some diphthongs specific to this dialect. Once regarded as a Cockney feature, in a number of forms of spoken British English, /t/ has become commonly realised as a glottal stop [ʔ] when it is in the intervocalic position, in
4508-410: The adjective little is predominant elsewhere. Nevertheless, there is a meaningful degree of uniformity in written English within the United Kingdom, and this could be described by the term British English . The forms of spoken English, however, vary considerably more than in most other areas of the world where English is spoken and so a uniform concept of British English is more difficult to apply to
4600-488: The award of the grant in 2007, Leeds University stated: that they were "very pleased"—and indeed, "well chuffed"—at receiving their generous grant. He could, of course, have been "bostin" if he had come from the Black Country , or if he was a Scouser he would have been well "made up" over so many spondoolicks, because as a Geordie might say, £460,000 is a "canny load of chink". Most people in Britain speak with
4692-454: The ball remakes that wicket, it cannot be reverted again. • Nosering Rule (an admittedly stupid name, the origin lost to history): Once per game, or sometimes once per half, at the end of one's turn, one may move one's ball exactly one mallet head, except not into or thru any wicket in either direction, and not to be touching either stake. In a team game, one may use a teammate's unused nosering move. • Alzheimer's Rule: Before or after hitting
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#17327905024324784-407: The ball, if that player or anyone else realizes that the player forgot their current wicket, stake, or other mandatory objective, the hit is retaken (if in fact it has been taken), except when croqueting another ball; all players have the obligation to point this out before the hit. • Act of Dog: If a player's ball is relocated by an unleashed dog, it shall be played from the location the dog released
4876-455: The ball. If the ball is released out of bounds, then the ball shall be played from the point (after adjusting for a mallet width from the boundary) it was removed from the field. • Dynamic Starting Order: After lagging to the stake for starting order, the players exercise the option to go or not go in order of closeness; after each player goes, the remaining players re-choose who goes next in the same order. • McKlintock Start, an option to start
4968-498: The categorical statement, "One thing only is certain: it is from Ireland that croquet came to England and it was on the lawn of the late Lord Lonsdale that it was first played in this country." John Jaques apparently claimed in a letter to Arthur Lillie in 1873 that he had himself seen the game played in Ireland, writing, "I made the implements and published directions (such as they were) before Mr. Spratt [mentioned above] introduced
5060-622: The country. The BBC Voices project also collected hundreds of news articles about how the British speak English from swearing through to items on language schools. This information will also be collated and analysed by Johnson's team both for content and for where it was reported. "Perhaps the most remarkable finding in the Voices study is that the English language is as diverse as ever, despite our increased mobility and constant exposure to other accents and dialects through TV and radio". When discussing
5152-490: The description above suggests that the croquet-like games in particular were popular in England by the early 17th century. Some other early modern sources refer to pall-mall being played over a large distance (as in golf); however, an image in Strutt's 1801 book shows a croquet-like ground billiards game (balls on the ground, hoop, bats, and peg) being played over a short , garden-sized distance. The image's caption describes
5244-418: The duration of that turn. During a turn, a player may earn extra shots in two ways. A player earns a single extra shot by scoring a hoop point (hitting the striker's ball through a hoop), or two extra shots by causing their ball to contact another ball-an action called a "roquet". When a roquet is made, the player may pick up their ball and place it in contact with the roqueted ball. The next shot must move both
5336-575: The eight hoops "to ring the changes", two pegs, a double hoop with a bell, and two tunnels for the ball to pass through. In 1865, the 'Rules of the Eglinton Castle and Cassiobury Croquet' was published by Edmund Routledge . Several incomplete sets of this form of croquet are known to exist, and one complete set is still used for demonstration games in the West of Scotland. Croquet is popularly believed to be viciously competitive. That may derive from
5428-467: The fact that (unlike in golf) players will often attempt to move their opponents' balls to unfavourable positions. However, purely negative play is rarely a winning strategy; successful players (in all versions other than golf croquet) will use all four balls to set up a break for themselves, rather than simply making the game as difficult as possible for their opponents. The way croquet is depicted in paintings and books says much about popular perceptions of
5520-613: The familiar nine-wicket croquet game to the modern sport of six-wicket croquet. There are USCA-affiliated clubs and tournaments across the United States and Canada. The official rules of American Croquet are maintained by the USCA. The USCA is a member of the World Croquet Federation . The USCA is headquartered at the National Croquet Center , 700 Florida Mango Road, West Palm Beach, Florida . It has
5612-779: The final of the Golf Croquet World Championship in Cairo, becoming the first person to simultaneously hold the title in both association croquet and golf croquet. As of 2023, the Golf Croquet World Champion was Matthew Essick (USA), and the Women's Golf Croquet World Champion was Jamie Gumbrell (Australia). In 2018, two international championships open to both sexes were won by women: in May, Rachel Gee of England beat Pierre Beaudry of Belgium to win
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#17327905024325704-421: The five clubs would agree upon. They eventually published a new rule book, which established American Rules croquet. Since then, the list has grown to nearly 400 member clubs with 3,500 members, and the rules have survived with minor periodic adjustments. The USCA opened its current headquarters in West Palm Beach, Florida , in February 2002, although the facility began hosting tournaments one month prior. Named
5796-420: The game jeu de mail (itself ancestral to pall-mall and perhaps to indoor billiards ) was popular in France, including in the courts of Henry II in the 16th century and Louis XIV of the 17th. At least one version of it, rouët ('wheel'), was a multi-ball lawn game. Records show a game called "crookey", similar to croquet, being played at Castlebellingham in County Louth, Ireland, in 1834, which
5888-423: The game are directly governed by the World Croquet Federation , which organises individual and team World Championships. Other regional variants which developed in parallel remain common in parts of the world. Association croquet is played between two individuals or teams, each playing with two balls. The object of the game is to be the first to strike each of their balls through all six hoops in both directions, in
5980-400: The game as "a curious ancient pastime", confirming that croquet games were not new in early-19th-century England. In Samuel Johnson 's 1755 dictionary, his definition of "pall-mall" clearly describes a game with similarities to modern croquet: "A play in which the ball is struck with a mallet through an iron ring". However, there is no evidence that pall-mall involved the croquet stroke, which
6072-411: The game is to reach a certain number of points, typically seven, earned by being the first to run a hoop. The game opens by playing each ball into the lawn from the fourth (south-eastern) corner of the lawn. Balls must be played in order (for the primary ball colours, this is blue, red, black, and yellow), and this order of play is maintained throughout the game. Hoops are contested in a fixed order, with
6164-418: The game, though little about the reality of modern play. About 200 croquet clubs across the United States are members of the United States Croquet Association. British English British English (abbreviations: BrE , en-GB , and BE ) is the set of varieties of the English language native to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland . More narrowly, it can refer specifically to
6256-505: The game: A ball still on start 1-out or 2-out cannot be used to roquet another ball, nor can it be roquet'd without its owner's permission. Nevertheless, such a ball may hit any other ball or be hit by any other ball; however, the hitter's go is over and no deadness is established. As well as club-level games, county-level tournaments, and leagues, there are regular world championships and international matches between croquet-playing countries. The sport has particularly strong followings in
6348-404: The idea of two different morphemes, one that causes the double negation, and one that is used for the point or the verb. Standard English in the United Kingdom, as in other English-speaking nations, is widely enforced in schools and by social norms for formal contexts but not by any singular authority; for instance, there is no institution equivalent to the Académie française with French or
6440-403: The last southern Midlands accent to use the broad "a" in words like bath or grass (i.e. barth or grarss ). Conversely crass or plastic use a slender "a". A few miles northwest in Leicestershire the slender "a" becomes more widespread generally. In the town of Corby , five miles (8 km) north, one can find Corbyite which, unlike the Kettering accent, is largely influenced by
6532-408: The later Norman occupation led to the grafting onto that Germanic core of a more elaborate layer of words from the Romance branch of the European languages. This Norman influence entered English largely through the courts and government. Thus, English developed into a "borrowing" language of great flexibility and with a huge vocabulary . Dialects and accents vary amongst the four countries of
6624-457: The mass internal migration to Northamptonshire in the 1940s and given its position between several major accent regions, it has become a source of various accent developments. In Northampton the older accent has been influenced by overspill Londoners. There is an accent known locally as the Kettering accent, which is a transitional accent between the East Midlands and East Anglian . It is
6716-463: The modern period, but due to their remoteness from the Germanic languages , influence on English was notably limited . However, the degree of influence remains debated, and it has recently been argued that its grammatical influence accounts for the substantial innovations noted between English and the other West Germanic languages. Initially, Old English was a diverse group of dialects, reflecting
6808-423: The normal options. A poison ball that hits a stake or passes through any wicket (possibly through the action of a non-poison player) is eliminated. The last person remaining is the winner. The Richmond Virginia Extreme Croquet Club has these rules: • Revert Rule: If a ball traverses its prior wicket in the opposite direction, this now becomes its current wicket; exceptions: (1) a rover cannot be reverted; (2) until
6900-527: The one-ball singles, Chrétien Waydelich won the two-ball singles, and the doubles event was won by the pair of Gaston Aumoitte and Georges Johin, securing all the medals as all 10 participants were French. The oldest document to bear the word croquet with a description of the modern game is the set of rules registered by Isaac Spratt in November 1856 with the Stationers' Company of London . This record
6992-414: The opposite side of the double diamond and hit the starting stake to end. If playing individually ( Cutthroat ), the first player to stake out is the winner. In partnership play, all members of a team must stake out, and a player might choose to avoid staking out (becoming a Rover ) in order to help a lagging teammate. Each time a ball is roqueted, the striker gets two bonus shots. For the first bonus shot,
7084-408: The player has four options: The second bonus shot ("continuation shot") is an ordinary shot played from where the striker ball came to rest. An alternative endgame is "poison": in this variant, a player who has scored the last wicket but not hit the starting stake becomes a "poison ball", which may eliminate other balls from the game by roqueting them. A non-poison ball that roquets a poison ball has
7176-403: The player's ball and the roqueted ball, and it is the "croquet" stroke that gives the game its name. After a successful croquet stroke, the player has a single further shot, known as the "continuation". During a turn, each of the other three balls may only be croqueted once between hoop points, but by stringing together a series of roquets, croquets, and scored hoops, several points may be scored in
7268-434: The same sequence (blue, red, black, yellow). The limitation of roqueting each ball once between hoop points is, unlike in association croquet, carried over from turn to turn until the ball scores the next hoop. In American six-wicket, this is termed "deadness", and a separate board is required to keep track of the deadness for all four balls. A further difference is the more restrictive boundary-line rules of American croquet. In
7360-401: The spoken language. Globally, countries that are former British colonies or members of the Commonwealth tend to follow British English, as is the case for English used by European Union institutions. In China, both British English and American English are taught. The UK government actively teaches and promotes English around the world and operates in over 200 countries . English is
7452-489: The subject to me." Whatever the truth of the matter, Jaques certainly played an important role in popularising the game, producing editions of the rules in 1857, 1860, and 1864. Croquet became highly popular as a social pastime in England during the 1860s. It was enthusiastically adopted and promoted by the Earl of Essex , who held lavish croquet parties at Cassiobury House , his stately home in Watford , Hertfordshire , and
7544-603: The theft of work tools worth £500 from a van at the Sprucefield park and ride car park in Lisburn. A football team can be treated likewise: Arsenal have lost just one of 20 home Premier League matches against Manchester City. This tendency can be observed in texts produced already in the 19th century. For example, Jane Austen , a British author, writes in Chapter 4 of Pride and Prejudice , published in 1813: All
7636-478: The top six of the GC country rankings, below Egypt in top position, and with Spain at number six. Individual World Championships usually take place every two or three years. The 2023 AC World Championships took place in London; the winner was Robert Fulford . The current Women's Association Croquet World Champion (2023) is Debbie Lines of England. The most prestigious international team competition in association croquet
7728-403: The traditional accent of Newcastle upon Tyne , 'out' will sound as 'oot', and in parts of Scotland and North-West England, 'my' will be pronounced as 'me'. Long vowels /iː/ and /uː/ are diphthongised to [ɪi] and [ʊu] respectively (or, more technically, [ʏʉ], with a raised tongue), so that ee and oo in feed and food are pronounced with a movement. The diphthong [oʊ] is also pronounced with
7820-750: The varied origins of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England. One of these dialects, Late West Saxon , eventually came to dominate. The original Old English was then influenced by two waves of invasion: the first was by speakers of the Scandinavian branch of the Germanic family, who settled in parts of Britain in the eighth and ninth centuries; the second was the Normans in the 11th century, who spoke Old Norman and ultimately developed an English variety of this called Anglo-Norman . These two invasions caused English to become "mixed" to some degree (though it
7912-402: The word 'British' and as a result can be used and interpreted in two ways, more broadly or more narrowly, within a range of blurring and ambiguity". Variations exist in formal (both written and spoken) English in the United Kingdom. For example, the adjective wee is almost exclusively used in parts of Scotland, north-east England, Northern Ireland, Ireland, and occasionally Yorkshire , whereas
8004-568: The world are good and agreeable in your eyes. However, in Chapter 16, the grammatical number is used. The world is blinded by his fortune and consequence. Some dialects of British English use negative concords, also known as double negatives . Rather than changing a word or using a positive, words like nobody, not, nothing, and never would be used in the same sentence. While this does not occur in Standard English, it does occur in non-standard dialects. The double negation follows
8096-581: Was a fashionable amusement in the reign of Charles the Second, and the walk in Saint James's Park, now called the Mall, received its name from having been appropriated to the purpose of playing at mall, where Charles himself and his courtiers frequently exercised themselves in the practice of this pastime." While the name pall-mall and various games bearing this name also appeared elsewhere (France and Italy),
8188-506: Was a revival in the 1890s, but going forward croquet was always a minority sport, with national individual participation amounting to a few thousand players. The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club still has a croquet lawn, but has not hosted any significant tournaments. Its championship was won 38 times by Bernard Neal . The English headquarters for the game is now in Cheltenham . The earliest known reference to croquet in Scotland
8280-492: Was introduced to Galway in 1835 and played on the bishop's palace garden, and in the same year to the genteel Dublin suburb of Kingstown (today Dún Laoghaire ) where it was first spelled as "croquet". There is, however, no pre-1858 Irish document that describes the way the game was played; in particular, there is no reference to the distinctive croquet stroke, which is described above under " Variations: Association ". The noted croquet historian Dr. Prior, in his book of 1872, makes
8372-422: Was never a truly mixed language in the strictest sense of the word; mixed languages arise from the cohabitation of speakers of different languages, who develop a hybrid tongue for basic communication). The more idiomatic, concrete and descriptive English is, the more it is from Anglo-Saxon origins. The more intellectual and abstract English is, the more it contains Latin and French influences, e.g. swine (like
8464-535: Was regularly played in France and southern Britain between villages or parishes; it was attested in Cornwall as early as 1283. In the book Queen of Games: The History of Croquet , Nicky Smith presents two theories of the origin of the modern game of croquet, which took England by storm in the 1860s and then spread overseas. The first explanation is that the ancestral game was introduced to Britain from France during
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