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163-534: In English , the round in which only eight competitors remain is generally called (with or without hyphenation) the quarter-final round; this is followed by the semi-final round, in which only four are left, the two winners of which then meet in the final or championship round . The round before the quarterfinals has multiple designations. Often it is called the round of sixteen , last sixteen , or (in South Asia) pre-quarterfinals . In many other languages

326-553: A mixed language or a creole —a theory called the Middle English creole hypothesis . Although the great influence of these languages on the vocabulary and grammar of Modern English is widely acknowledged, most specialists in language contact do not consider English to be a true mixed language. English is classified as a Germanic language because it shares innovations with other Germanic languages including Dutch , German , and Swedish . These shared innovations show that

489-644: A 2012 official Eurobarometer poll (conducted when the UK was still a member of the EU), 38 percent of the EU respondents outside the countries where English is an official language said they could speak English well enough to have a conversation in that language. The next most commonly mentioned foreign language, French (which is the most widely known foreign language in the UK and Ireland), could be used in conversation by 12 percent of respondents. A working knowledge of English has become

652-574: A break of 99, missing out on his century after he snookered himself. There were five entries in 1933 , with debutant Willie Smith meeting Davis in the final, but lost 18–25. There were just two entries in 1934 , Davis being opposed by Tom Newman, six times World Billiards Champion. The match was held partly in Nottingham before finishing in Kettering , with Davis winning 25–22. The 1935 Championship introduced some significant changes. It

815-456: A break of fifty-eight to clinch the title. Fergal O'Brien made a century in his first frame at the Crucible, the only player ever to do so. In 1995, Hendry and White met in the semi-finals, where Hendry won again, making a maximum break during the match. In the other semi-final Nigel Bond beat unseeded Andy Hicks . The final was initially close until Hendry won nine frames in a row to take

978-507: A change in format, with the tournament played over two weeks at a single venue rather than over an extended period. Sixteen played in the first round, the eight winners playing eight seeded players in the second round. In the semi-finals, defending champion Alex Higgins lost 9–23 to Eddie Charlton while Ray Reardon beat John Spencer 23–22. In the five-day final Charlton led 7–0 after the opening session but Reardon led 17–13 after two days. The match continued to be close but Reardon pulled ahead on

1141-672: A dispute between the Professional Billiards Players' Association (PBPA) and the Billiards Association and Control Council (BACC). The PBPA held an unofficial alternative, the World Professional Match-play Championship , between 1952 and 1957. The official championship was revived on a challenge basis in 1964. The World Snooker Championship reverted to a knockout tournament format in 1969 , beginning what

1304-658: A distinct language from Modern English and is virtually impossible for 21st-century unstudied English-speakers to understand. Its grammar was similar to that of modern German: nouns, adjectives, pronouns, and verbs had many more inflectional endings and forms , and word order was much freer than in Modern English. Modern English has case forms in pronouns ( he , him , his ) and has a few verb inflections ( speak , speaks , speaking , spoke , spoken ), but Old English had case endings in nouns as well, and verbs had more person and number endings. Its closest relative

1467-420: A draw may be settled in extra time and eventually by a penalty shootout or by replaying the fixture. Another perceived disadvantage is that most competitors are eliminated after relatively few games. Variations such as the double-elimination tournament allow competitors a single loss while remaining eligible for overall victory. However, losing one game requires the competitor to win more games in order to win

1630-490: A foreign language, make up the "expanding circle". The distinctions between English as a first language, as a second language, and as a foreign language are often debatable and may change in particular countries over time. For example, in the Netherlands and some other countries of Europe, knowledge of English as a second language is nearly universal, with over 80 percent of the population able to use it, and thus English

1793-456: A match between the losers of the semifinal matches called third place playoffs , the winner therein placing third and the loser fourth. Many Olympic single-elimination tournaments feature the bronze medal match if they do not award bronze medals to both losing semifinalists. The FIFA World Cup has long featured the third place match (since 1934 ), though the UEFA Euro has not held one since

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1956-520: A more standard version of English. They have many more speakers of English who acquire English as they grow up through day-to-day use and listening to broadcasting, especially if they attend schools where English is the medium of instruction. Varieties of English learned by non-native speakers born to English-speaking parents may be influenced, especially in their grammar, by the other languages spoken by those learners. Most of those varieties of English include words little used by native speakers of English in

2119-695: A number of other Anglic languages, including Scots and the extinct Fingallian dialect and Yola language of Ireland. Like Icelandic and Faroese , the development of English in the British Isles isolated it from the continental Germanic languages and influences, and it has since diverged considerably. English is not mutually intelligible with any continental Germanic language, as it differs in vocabulary , syntax , and phonology . However, some of these, such as Dutch or Frisian, do show strong affinities with English, especially with its earlier stages. Unlike Icelandic and Faroese, which were isolated,

2282-500: A possible match-up with the top seed until one round later. MLS' format is identical, except that the conference quarterfinals is a best-of-three series. In some situations, a seeding restriction may be implemented; from 1975 until 1989 in the NFL , and from 1994 until 2011 in MLB there was a rule where at the conference or league semifinal, should the top seed and last seed (wild card) be from

2445-436: A quarter-final from the previous year . Sometimes the remaining competitors in a single-elimination tournament will be "re-seeded" so that the highest surviving seed is made to play the lowest surviving seed in the next round, the second-highest plays the second-lowest, etc. This may be done after each round, or only at selected intervals. In American team sports, for example, the NFL employs this tactic, but MLS , NHL and

2608-467: A random factor is always present in a real-world competition, this might easily cause accusations of unfairness. Variations of the single-elimination tournament include: Other common tournament types include: English language English is a West Germanic language in the Indo-European language family , whose speakers, called Anglophones , originated in early medieval England on

2771-408: A record which was equalled in 2012 and 2024. James Wattana , from Thailand made history in 1993 - becoming the first Asian player to reach the semi-finals, where he lost to Jimmy White. The final was one-sided, with Stephen Hendry beating White 18–5 with a session to spare, the last time (as of 2023) that the final has been won without needing a fourth session. Total prize money reached £1,000,000 for

2934-684: A requirement in a number of occupations and professions such as medicine and computing. English has become so important in scientific publishing that more than 80 percent of all scientific journal articles indexed by Chemical Abstracts in 1998 were written in English, as were 90 percent of all articles in natural science publications by 1996 and 82 percent of articles in humanities publications by 1995. International communities such as international business people may use English as an auxiliary language , with an emphasis on vocabulary suitable for their domain of interest. This has led some scholars to develop

3097-407: A rich inflectional morphology and relatively free word order to a mostly analytic pattern with little inflection and a fairly fixed subject–verb–object word order . Modern English relies more on auxiliary verbs and word order for the expression of complex tenses , aspects and moods , as well as passive constructions , interrogatives , and some negation . The earliest form of English

3260-461: A row to win 17–15. In the final, Williams met fellow Welshman Matthew Stevens . Stevens led 13–7 but Williams made another comeback to win 18–16, becoming the first left-handed champion. 2000 was the first time (and, as of 2023 the only occasion) where the final was contested by two Welsh players. Ronnie O'Sullivan won his first world championship in 2001 , defeating John Higgins 18–14 in the final. O'Sullivan led 14–7 before Higgins won four frames in

3423-467: A row. O'Sullivan looked likely to win the title in the 31st frame as he led 17–13 and 69–6, however he missed a red in the middle pocket and Higgins won the frame with a break of 65. Higgins made a break of 45 in frame 32 but O'Sullivan then made an 80 break to take the title. Stephen Hendry beat defending champion Ronnie O'Sullivan 17–13 in the semi-final of the 2002 Championship , Hendry reaching his ninth final. Peter Ebdon beat Matthew Stevens 17–16 in

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3586-758: A significant minority speaks English. The countries with the most native English speakers are, in descending order, the United States (at least 231 million), the United Kingdom (60 million), Canada (19 million), Australia (at least 17 million), South Africa (4.8 million), Ireland (4.2 million), and New Zealand (3.7 million). In these countries, children of native speakers learn English from their parents, and local people who speak other languages and new immigrants learn English to communicate in their neighbourhoods and workplaces. The inner-circle countries provide

3749-447: A verb ending ( present plural): From the 8th to the 11th centuries, Old English gradually transformed through language contact with Old Norse in some regions. The waves of Norse (Viking) colonisation of northern parts of the British Isles in the 8th and 9th centuries put Old English into intense contact with Old Norse , a North Germanic language. Norse influence was strongest in the north-eastern varieties of Old English spoken in

3912-604: A winning 73–37 position early on the tenth day. Having boycotted the official championship, the PBPA established their own championship called the PBPA Snooker Championship which attracted ten entries. Fred Davis and Donaldson were given byes to the semi-final stage, and met again in the final, held at the Blackpool Tower Circus, as Davis won 38–35. A second such championship was played

4075-563: Is Old Frisian , but even some centuries after the Anglo-Saxon migration, Old English retained considerable mutual intelligibility with other Germanic varieties. Even in the 9th and 10th centuries, amidst the Danelaw and other Viking invasions, there is historical evidence that Old Norse and Old English retained considerable mutual intelligibility, although probably the northern dialects of Old English were more similar to Old Norse than

4238-695: Is 1 v 8, 2 v 7, 3 v 6 and 4 v 5, for example this is used for 16 seeds in the World Snooker Championship and 32 seeds in the World Darts Championship . Some tournaments stray from this, for example it is not the procedure that is followed in most tennis tournaments, where the 1 and 2 seeds are placed in separate brackets, but then the 3 and 4 seeds are assigned to their brackets randomly, and so too are seeds 5 through 8, and so on. This may result in some brackets consisting of stronger players than other brackets, and since only

4401-400: Is also the most widely learned second language in the world, with more second-language speakers than native speakers. English is either the official language or one of the official languages in 59 sovereign states (such as India , Ireland , and Canada ). In some other countries, it is the sole or dominant language for historical reasons without being explicitly defined by law (such as in

4564-466: Is also undergoing change under the influence of American English, fuelled by the strong presence of American English in the media and the prestige associated with the United States as a world power. As of 2016 , 400 million people spoke English as their first language , and 1.1 billion spoke it as a secondary language. English is the largest language by number of speakers . English

4727-610: Is also widely used in media and literature, and the number of English language books published annually in India is the third largest in the world after the US and UK. However, English is rarely spoken as a first language, numbering only around a couple hundred-thousand people, and less than 5% of the population speak fluent English in India. David Crystal claimed in 2004 that, combining native and non-native speakers, India now has more people who speak or understand English than any other country in

4890-407: Is an official language of countries populated by few descendants of native speakers of English. It has also become by far the most important language of international communication when people who share no native language meet anywhere in the world. The Indian linguist Braj Kachru distinguished countries where English is spoken with a three circles model . In his model, Kachru based his model on

5053-538: Is called Old English or Anglo-Saxon ( c.  450–1150 ). Old English developed from a set of West Germanic dialects, often grouped as Anglo-Frisian or North Sea Germanic , and originally spoken along the coasts of Frisia , Lower Saxony and southern Jutland by Germanic peoples known to the historical record as the Angles , Saxons , and Jutes . From the 5th century, the Anglo-Saxons settled Britain as

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5216-533: Is first - for example, if sorting the numbers 1-4 ascending, if 4 and 3 meet in the first round, 3 and 1 will lose in the first round and 2 will lose in the second, selecting 4 as the largest number in the set, but insufficient comparisons have been performed to determine which is greater, 1 or 3. Despite this, the candidate that loses in the final round is commonly considered to have taken second place (in this case, 2). When matches are held to determine places or prizes lower than first and second, these typically include

5379-565: Is now known as snooker's modern era. It has taken place annually since then, with every championship since 1977 staged at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield . Under a format that has remained largely unchanged since 1982 , 32 players reach the Crucible each year; the top 16 players in the world rankings qualify automatically, while another 16 players win places through a qualification tournament. Only three qualifiers have ever won

5542-536: Is often arbitrarily defined as beginning with the conquest of England by William the Conqueror in 1066, but it developed further in the period from 1150 to 1500. With the Norman conquest of England in 1066, the now-Norsified Old English language was subject to another wave of intense contact, this time with Old French , in particular Old Norman French , influencing it as a superstrate. The Norman French spoken by

5705-462: Is rare in English itself, with noticeable use in American debate tournaments. The round before the round of sixteen is sometimes called round of thirty-two in English. Terms for this in other languages generally translate as "sixteenth final". Earlier rounds are typically numbered counting forwards from the first round, or by the number of remaining competitors. If some competitors get a bye ,

5868-424: Is routinely used to communicate with foreigners and often in higher education. In these countries, although English is not used for government business, its widespread use puts them at the boundary between the "outer circle" and "expanding circle". English is unusual among world languages in how many of its users are not native speakers but speakers of English as a second or foreign language. Many users of English in

6031-517: Is spoken by communities on every continent and on islands in all the major oceans. The countries where English is spoken can be grouped into different categories according to how English is used in each country. The "inner circle" countries with many native speakers of English share an international standard of written English and jointly influence speech norms for English around the world. English does not belong to just one country, and it does not belong solely to descendants of English settlers. English

6194-500: Is the longest-running and most prestigious tournament in professional snooker . It is also the richest, with total prize money of £2,395,000 in 2023 , including £500,000 for the winner. First held in 1927 , it is now one of the three tournaments (together with the UK Championship and the invitational Masters ) that make up snooker's Triple Crown Series . The reigning world champion is Kyren Wilson . Joe Davis dominated

6357-777: Is the third person pronoun group beginning with th- ( they, them, their ) which replaced the Anglo-Saxon pronouns with h- ( hie, him, hera ). Other core Norse loanwords include "give", "get", "sky", "skirt", "egg", and "cake", typically displacing a native Anglo-Saxon equivalent. Old Norse in this era retained considerable mutual intelligibility with some dialects of Old English, particularly northern ones. Englischmen þeyz hy hadde fram þe bygynnyng þre manner speche, Souþeron, Northeron, and Myddel speche in þe myddel of þe lond, ... Noþeles by comyxstion and mellyng, furst wiþ Danes, and afterward wiþ Normans, in menye þe contray longage ys asperyed, and som vseþ strange wlaffyng, chyteryng, harryng, and garryng grisbytting. Although, from

6520-415: Is the youngest champion in the tournament's history, winning his first title in 1990 aged 21 years and 106 days. O'Sullivan became the oldest champion in 2022 when he won his seventh title aged 46 years and 148 days. O'Sullivan also holds the record for the most Crucible appearances with 32, having taken part in the tournament every year between 1993 and 2024 . Fourteen maximum breaks have been made in

6683-469: The 1931 championship . Davis and Tom Dennis met for the fourth time, the event being played in Nottingham. Dennis led 19–16 at one stage, but Davis won nine of the next eleven frames to take the Championship 25–21. There were three entries for the 1932 tournament . Clark McConachy met Davis in the final, played at Thurston's Hall. Davis took the title after a 30–19 win, and set a new record with

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6846-441: The 1947 championship , Fred Davis and Walter Donaldson , agreed to delay the final until the autumn so that it could be played at the rebuilt Thurston's Hall. Donaldson got off to a good start, leading 44–28 after the first week and eventually took a winning 73–49 lead early on the 11th day. The pair met again in the 1948 final , Fred Davis and Walter Donaldson again reached the final, with Davis winning 73–49. They also contested

7009-410: The 1949 final, and although Donaldson led 39–33 after the first week, Davis pulled ahead on the second week and eventually took a winning 73–58 lead. After three finals at Leicester Square Hall the 1950 final moved to Blackpool Tower Circus . Fred Davis and Donaldson met in the final for the next two years, with Donaldson winning in 1950, 49–42, and Davis in 1951 . Following a dispute between

7172-421: The 1980 edition . Sometimes, contests are also held among the losers of the quarterfinal matches to determine fifth to eighth places. In one scenario, two "consolation semifinal" matches may be conducted, with the winners of these then facing off to determine fifth and sixth places and the losers playing for seventh and eighth; those are used often in qualifying tournaments where only the top five teams advance to

7335-485: The Augustinian canon Orrm , which highlights the blending of both Old English and Anglo-Norman elements in English for the first time. In Wycliff'e Bible of the 1380s, the verse Matthew 8:20 was written: Foxis han dennes, and briddis of heuene han nestis . Here the plural suffix -n on the verb have is still retained, but none of the case endings on the nouns are present. By the 12th century Middle English

7498-546: The Danelaw area around York, which was the centre of Norse colonisation; today these features are still particularly present in Scots and Northern English . The centre of Norsified English was in the Midlands around Lindsey . After 920 CE, when Lindsey was incorporated into the Anglo-Saxon polity, English spread extensively throughout the region. An element of Norse influence that continues in all English varieties today

7661-552: The European Free Trade Association , Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) set English as their organisation's sole working language even though most members are not countries with a majority of native English speakers. While the European Union (EU) allows member states to designate any of the national languages as an official language of

7824-536: The Germanic language branch, and as of 2021 , Ethnologue estimated that there were over 1.5 billion speakers worldwide. Old English emerged from a group of West Germanic dialects spoken by the Anglo-Saxons . Late Old English borrowed some grammar and core vocabulary from Old Norse , a North Germanic language . Then, Middle English borrowed vocabulary extensively from French dialects , which are

7987-767: The Low Saxon and Frisian languages . English is an Indo-European language and belongs to the West Germanic group of the Germanic languages . Old English originated from a Germanic tribal and linguistic continuum along the Frisian North Sea coast, whose languages gradually evolved into the Anglic languages in the British Isles , and into the Frisian languages and Low German /Low Saxon on

8150-573: The NBA do not (and neither does the NCAA college basketball tournament ). Although MLB does have enough teams (12) in its playoff tournament where re-seeding would have made a large difference in the matchups; only the WNBA's at the minimum, which is at least four from each conference for a total of 8. The NBA's format calls for the winner of the first-round series between the first and eighth seeds (within each of

8313-668: The United Nations at the end of World War II , English had become pre-eminent and is now the main worldwide language of diplomacy and international relations. It is one of six official languages of the United Nations. Many other worldwide international organisations, including the International Olympic Committee , specify English as a working language or official language of the organisation. Many regional international organisations such as

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8476-518: The palatalisation of consonants that were velar consonants in Proto-Germanic (see Phonological history of Old English § Palatalization ). The earliest varieties of an English language, collectively known as Old English or "Anglo-Saxon", evolved from a group of North Sea Germanic dialects brought to Britain in the 5th century. Old English dialects were later influenced by Old Norse -speaking Viking invaders and settlers , starting in

8639-426: The " class of '92 ": Ronnie O'Sullivan won five times in this period, John Higgins three times and Mark Williams twice. Higgins had also won in 1998; Williams would win again in 2018 and O'Sullivan went on to win in 2020 and 2022. In 2000 Stephen Hendry was beaten 10–7 in the first round by Crucible debutant Stuart Bingham . In his semi-final, Mark Williams trailed 11–15 to John Higgins but took six frames in

8802-564: The "outer circle" countries are countries such as the Philippines , Jamaica , India , Pakistan , Singapore , Malaysia and Nigeria with a much smaller proportion of native speakers of English but much use of English as a second language for education, government, or domestic business, and its routine use for school instruction and official interactions with the government. Those countries have millions of native speakers of dialect continua ranging from an English-based creole to

8965-617: The 8th and 9th centuries. Middle English began in the late 11th century after the Norman Conquest of England, when a considerable amount of Old French vocabulary was incorporated into English over some three centuries. Early Modern English began in the late 15th century with the start of the Great Vowel Shift and the Renaissance trend of borrowing further Latin and Greek words and roots, concurrent with

9128-608: The Angles. English may have a small amount of substrate influence from Common Brittonic, and a number of possible Brittonicisms in English have been proposed, but whether most of these supposed Brittonicisms are actually a direct result of Brittonic substrate influence is disputed. Old English was divided into four dialects: the Anglian dialects ( Mercian and Northumbrian ) and the Saxon dialects ( Kentish and West Saxon ). Through

9291-524: The British Empire in the 1950s and 1960s, former colonies often did not reject English but rather continued to use it as independent countries setting their own language policies. For example, the view of the English language among many Indians has gone from associating it with colonialism to associating it with economic progress, and English continues to be an official language of India. English

9454-493: The Davis brothers meeting in the final. Joe led 15–10 but then Fred won eleven frames in succession to lead 21–15. On the final day Joe made a 101 break to take a winning 37–35 lead. The spectators cheered for nearly a minute when Joe made his century. In October 1940, during The Blitz , Thurston's Hall was destroyed by a parachute mine which demolished the south-western corner of Leicester Square. No tournaments were played during

9617-547: The Early Modern period includes the works of William Shakespeare and the translation of the Bible commissioned by King James I . Even after the vowel shift the language still sounded different from Modern English: for example, the consonant clusters /kn ɡn sw/ in knight , gnat , and sword were still pronounced. Many of the grammatical features that a modern reader of Shakespeare might find quaint or archaic represent

9780-655: The English Language , which introduced standard spellings of words and usage norms. In 1828, Noah Webster published the American Dictionary of the English language to try to establish a norm for speaking and writing American English that was independent of the British standard. Within Britain, non-standard or lower class dialect features were increasingly stigmatised, leading to the quick spread of

9943-557: The English-speaking inner circle countries outside Britain helped level dialect distinctions and produce koineised forms of English in South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. The majority of immigrants to the United States without British ancestry rapidly adopted English after arrival. Now the majority of the United States population are monolingual English speakers. English has ceased to be an "English language" in

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10106-475: The Professional Billiards Players' Association (PBPA) and the Billiards Association and Control Council (BACC), members of the PBPA boycotted the 1952 championship . The BACC thought the championship should be primarily a matter of honour, and financial considerations should come second. As a consequence of the boycott there were only two entries, Lindrum and McConachy. McConachy had played in

10269-554: The Roman economy and administration collapsed . By the 7th century, this Germanic language of the Anglo-Saxons became dominant in Britain , replacing the languages of Roman Britain (43–409): Common Brittonic , a Celtic language , and British Latin , brought to Britain by the Roman occupation. At this time, these dialects generally resisted influence from the then-local Brittonic and Latin languages. England and English (originally Ænglaland and Ænglisc ) are both named after

10432-494: The Union, in practice English is the main working language of EU organisations. Although in most countries English is not an official language, it is currently the language most often taught as a foreign language . In the countries of the EU, English is the most widely spoken foreign language in nineteen of the twenty-five member states where it is not an official language (that is, the countries other than Ireland and Malta ). In

10595-519: The United States and United Kingdom ). It is a co-official language of the United Nations , the European Union , and many other international and regional organisations. It has also become the de facto lingua franca of diplomacy, science , technology, international trade, logistics, tourism, aviation, entertainment, and the Internet . English accounts for at least 70% of total speakers of

10758-407: The base from which English spreads to other countries in the world. Estimates of the numbers of second language and foreign-language English speakers vary greatly from 470 million to more than 1 billion, depending on how proficiency is defined. Linguist David Crystal estimates that non-native speakers now outnumber native speakers by a ratio of 3 to 1. In Kachru's three-circles model,

10921-453: The basis for the required controlled natural languages Seaspeak and Airspeak, used as international languages of seafaring and aviation. English used to have parity with French and German in scientific research, but now it dominates that field. It achieved parity with French as a language of diplomacy at the Treaty of Versailles negotiations in 1919. By the time of the foundation of

11084-400: The beginning, Englishmen had three manners of speaking, southern, northern and midlands speech in the middle of the country, ... Nevertheless, through intermingling and mixing, first with Danes and then with Normans, amongst many the country language has arisen, and some use strange stammering, chattering, snarling, and grating gnashing. John Trevisa , c.  1385 Middle English

11247-422: The championship record set by Rex Williams in South Africa in 1965. In the 1980 championship , the number of participants was extended to twenty-four players. Those seeded from nine to sixteen each met a qualifier in the first round, the winner meeting one of the top eight seeds in the second round. Several changes were made to accommodate the extra matches, including a reduction in the number of frames played in

11410-490: The chance to win a seventh world title. Cliff Thorburn made the first maximum break of the World Championship in 1983 during his second-round match against Terry Griffiths . The importance of this achievement at the time is demonstrated by the fact that play was stopped on the other table. This was the break that gave the World Championship one of its most iconic words of commentary, "oh, good luck mate" on

11573-453: The competition, seeding is often used to prevent this. Brackets are set up so that the top two seeds could not possibly meet until the final round (should both advance that far), none of the top four can meet prior to the semifinals, and so on. If no seeding is used, the tournament is called a random knockout tournament. Standard seeding pairs the highest and lowest, then second highest and second lowest and so on, for an 8 seed tournament this

11736-638: The consensus of educated English speakers around the world, without any oversight by any government or international organisation. American listeners readily understand most British broadcasting, and British listeners readily understand most American broadcasting. Most English speakers around the world can understand radio programmes, television programmes, and films from many parts of the English-speaking world. Both standard and non-standard varieties of English can include both formal or informal styles, distinguished by word choice and syntax and use both technical and non-technical registers. The settlement history of

11899-701: The continent. The Frisian languages, which together with the Anglic languages form the Anglo-Frisian languages , are the closest living relatives of English. Low German/Low Saxon is also closely related, and sometimes English, the Frisian languages, and Low German are grouped together as the North Sea Germanic languages, though this grouping remains debated. Old English evolved into Middle English , which in turn evolved into Modern English. Particular dialects of Old and Middle English also developed into

12062-476: The development of English was influenced by a long series of invasions of the British Isles by other peoples and languages, particularly Old Norse and French dialects . These left a profound mark of their own on the language, so that English shows some similarities in vocabulary and grammar with many languages outside its linguistic clades —but it is not mutually intelligible with any of those languages either. Some scholars have argued that English can be considered

12225-476: The distinct characteristics of Early Modern English. In the 1611 King James Version of the Bible, written in Early Modern English, Matthew 8:20 says, "The Foxes haue holes and the birds of the ayre haue nests." This exemplifies the loss of case and its effects on sentence structure (replacement with subject–verb–object word order, and the use of of instead of the non-possessive genitive), and

12388-401: The early period of Old English were written using a runic script . By the 6th century, a Latin alphabet was adopted, written with half-uncial letterforms . It included the runic letters wynn ⟨ ƿ ⟩ and thorn ⟨ þ ⟩ , and the modified Latin letters eth ⟨ ð ⟩ , and ash ⟨ æ ⟩ . Old English is essentially

12551-551: The educational reforms of King Alfred in the 9th century and the influence of the kingdom of Wessex , the West Saxon dialect became the standard written variety . The epic poem Beowulf is written in West Saxon, and the earliest English poem, Cædmon's Hymn , is written in Northumbrian. Modern English developed mainly from Mercian, but the Scots language developed from Northumbrian. A few short inscriptions from

12714-695: The elite in England eventually developed into the Anglo-Norman language . Because Norman was spoken primarily by the elites and nobles, while the lower classes continued speaking English, the main influence of Norman was the introduction of a wide range of loanwords related to politics, legislation and prestigious social domains. Middle English also greatly simplified the inflectional system, probably in order to reconcile Old Norse and Old English, which were inflectionally different but morphologically similar. The distinction between nominative and accusative cases

12877-406: The entrance charges. Because of the importance of gate receipts, all frames were played out, even if a player had already won the match. There were five entries in 1935 Championship . Joe Davis beat Willie Smith 28–21 in the final. Davis recorded the first century break in the history of the championship, 110 in his semi-final match against Tom Newman . The break was made in a dead frame but

13040-408: The expanding circle use it to communicate with other people from the expanding circle, so that interaction with native speakers of English plays no part in their decision to use the language. Non-native varieties of English are widely used for international communication, and speakers of one such variety often encounter features of other varieties. Very often today a conversation in English anywhere in

13203-451: The fifth day. Fred Davis met John Pulman in the 1955 final at Blackpool Tower Circus, with Davis winning 38–35. Davis defeated Pulman again in the 1956 final , but did not enter the 1957 championship . Pulman defeated Jackie Rea in the final to win his first world title. With the approval of the BACC, the championship was revived on a challenge basis in 1964 . The first contest

13366-585: The final afternoon session and clinched the match by winning the first frame in the evening with a ninety-seven break. Spencer and another of the new professionals, Gary Owen , met in the final at the Victoria Halls in London. Spencer won the seventy-three frame final 37–24. Spencer lost to Ray Reardon at the semi-final stage of the 1970 Championship . Reardon went on to win the final against John Pulman to win his first title. The next world championship

13529-422: The final black, courtesy of Jack Karnehm . Thorburn beat Griffiths in a final-frame decider, a match that finished at 03:51, the latest-ever finish for a match at the Crucible. Thorburn then also won his quarter-final and semi-final matches in the deciding frame; exhausted, and deflated by the news that his wife had suffered a miscarriage, he faced a one-sided final against Steve Davis who won 18–6. The 1984 final

13692-399: The final day to win 38–32, for his second title. The 1974 Championship followed a similar format but with somewhat shorter matches and event reduced to ten days. Sixty-year-old Fred Davis beat Alex Higgins in the quarter-finals before losing to Ray Reardon. Reardon met Graham Miles in the three-day final. Reardon led 17–11 after two days and won comfortably 22–12. The 1975 Championship

13855-541: The final day, leading 73–62. Davis made six centuries in the final, setting new championship records of 133 and 136. The event proved a financial success for the players, with Davis receiving £1,800 and Lindrum £550. In October 1946, Joe Davis announced that he would no longer play in the World Championship, having never lost a match in the championship from its inception in 1927. He did not, in any other sense, retire from snooker, continuing to play in other tournaments and exhibition matches for many years. The finalists for

14018-402: The final he beat Mark Williams 18–11. In the semi-final between Hendry and O'Sullivan each player made four century breaks including a run of four centuries in four consecutive frames, two by each player. The eight centuries were a record for a world championship match. The period from 2000 to 2013 was dominated by three players, who were all born in 1975 and turned professional in 1992, dubbed

14181-484: The final stages, a new record. Ronnie O'Sullivan made the fastest maximum break in snooker history in 1997 - in the first round of the championship - taking just five minutes and eight seconds. The final was between Stephen Hendry and Irishman Ken Doherty . Doherty led 15–7 before Hendry won five frames in a row. Doherty then won the next three frames to win 18–12, ending Hendry's winning run of twenty-nine consecutive matches. In 1998, Stephen Hendry lost to Jimmy White in

14344-425: The final, and led 17–13 at the half-way stage, but Davis recovered to win the match 32–29. Davis made a break of 103 in the final, the first championship century in live play. Lindrum chose not to enter the 1938 event , which Davis also won, beating Sidney Smith in the final. The following year, Davis met Smith again in the final, and took a winning 37–25 lead on the final day. The 1940 Championship featured

14507-460: The final, played in Dennis's home town of Nottingham . Davis made a new record break of 61, on the way to a 19–14 victory. The same pair met in the 1930 final , played for the first time at Thurston's Hall in London, with Davis winning 25–12, with a day to spare and made a new record break of 79. With little prospect of success and little prospect of financial gain, there were only two entries for

14670-415: The final, to a maximum of thirty-five. Cliff Thorburn met Alex Higgins in the final. The match was level at 9–9 after the first day and again at 13–13 after the afternoon session on the second day. During the evening session, the score was tied once again at 16–16, before Thorburn made a 119 clearance in frame thirty-three and a break of fifty-one in frame thirty-four to win the championship. Despite being

14833-435: The final. Prize money peaked in 2003 with the winner receiving a record £270,000 and the thirty-two Crucible players getting at least £15,000. Ronnie O'Sullivan made the fifth maximum break in the World Championship during his first round match against Marco Fu becoming the first player to score two 147s in the event; however O'Sullivan was defeated 10–6, becoming the first player to make a maximum break and then go on to lose

14996-453: The first day and won the first five frames on the second day to win the match 18–3. As of 2023, Davis' victory in 1989 is the biggest winning margin in a World Championship final and one of only three occasions where the final has been won on the Sunday afternoon, with a session to spare. Davis won £105,000 for his 1989 victory, a new record. In 1990, Steve Davis failed to reach the final for

15159-430: The first frame on the last day. However Davis won the last ten frames in a row to win 34–27. Qualifying was introduced for the first time in 1937 . As the event had nine entries, two players were chosen to play a qualification match. The two were Fred Davis , Joe's younger brother and Bill Withers . Withers won the match 17–14, a defeat that Fred put down to ignoring his worsening eyesight. Lindrum played Joe Davis in

15322-430: The first round of the championship. Doherty reached the final again meeting 22-year-old John Higgins . Higgins won 18–12, making five centuries in the final. In total there were fifty-nine centuries during the tournament of which Higgins made fourteen, both records. Stephen Hendry won his seventh and final world title at the 1999 tournament , the most in the modern era until being equalled by Ronnie O'Sullivan in 2022. In

15485-495: The first time since 1982, losing in the semi-finals 14–16 to Jimmy White . Davis’ seven consecutive crucible finals to this day has yet to be equalled. In the final Stephen Hendry beat White 18–12 becoming, at 21 years, 106 days, the youngest ever world champion. Hendry was the number one seed in the 1991 tournament, but lost in the quarter-finals to Steve James . The final was between John Parrott and Jimmy White, Parrott winning 18–11. In 1992, Jimmy White became

15648-422: The first time. Jimmy White reached his sixth final in 1994, meeting Stephen Hendry for the fourth time. Hendry led 5–1 but White won six frames in a row to lead 7–5. Thereafter the match was always close and eventually went to a final frame. In the deciding frame, White had the first opportunity to finally win the title that had eluded him but missed a black off the spot when among the balls, after which Hendry made

15811-461: The following year, referred to as the 1953 World Professional Match-play Championship , with the same finalists. Played at Leicester Square Hall , it was tied at 33–33 at the start of the final session but Davis won 37–34. The pair met in the 1954 final, held in Manchester , their eighth successive final. It was the most one-sided of the eight finals, Davis taking a winning 36–15 lead early on

15974-721: The growing economic and cultural influence of the United States and its status as a superpower following the Second World War has, along with worldwide broadcasting in English by the BBC and other broadcasters, caused the language to spread across the planet much faster. In the 21st century, English is more widely spoken and written than any language has ever been. As Modern English developed, explicit norms for standard usage were published, and spread through official media such as public education and state-sponsored publications. In 1755, Samuel Johnson published his A Dictionary of

16137-454: The half-way stage, and pulled ahead and won the match 37–28. For 1969 , the championship reverted to being run as a knockout tournament. This is regarded as the beginning of the modern era for snooker. Eight professionals entered, four from the 1950s and four new professionals. The first match, played in late 1968, saw the end of John Pulman 's reign as champion, beaten by one of the new professionals, John Spencer . Spencer led 24–18 after

16300-479: The history of English was Early Modern English (1500–1700). Early Modern English was characterised by the Great Vowel Shift (1350–1700), inflectional simplification, and linguistic standardisation. The Great Vowel Shift affected the stressed long vowels of Middle English. It was a chain shift , meaning that each shift triggered a subsequent shift in the vowel system. Mid and open vowels were raised , and close vowels were broken into diphthongs . For example,

16463-407: The history of how English spread in different countries, how users acquire English, and the range of uses English has in each country. The three circles change membership over time. Countries with large communities of native speakers of English (the inner circle) include Britain, the United States, Australia, Canada, Ireland, and New Zealand, where the majority speaks English, and South Africa, where

16626-597: The history of the tournament, Cliff Thorburn compiled the first in 1983 , and Mark Selby the most recent in 2023, which was the first maximum break in a World Championship final. A record 109 century breaks were made at the Crucible in 2022. As of 2024, 28 players have won the World Snooker Championship. The first championship was held in 1927 , where it was known as the Professional Snooker Championship . It

16789-403: The inner-circle countries, and they may show grammatical and phonological differences from inner-circle varieties as well. The standard English of the inner-circle countries is often taken as a norm for use of English in the outer-circle countries. In the three-circles model, countries such as Poland, China, Brazil, Germany, Japan, Indonesia, Egypt, and other countries where English is taught as

16952-531: The introduction of loanwords from French ( ayre ) and word replacements ( bird originally meaning "nestling" had replaced OE fugol ). By the late 18th century, the British Empire had spread English through its colonies and geopolitical dominance. Commerce, science and technology, diplomacy, art, and formal education all contributed to English becoming the first truly global language. English also facilitated worldwide international communication. English

17115-475: The introduction of the printing press to London. This era notably culminated in the King James Bible and the works of William Shakespeare . The printing press greatly standardised English spelling, which has remained largely unchanged since then, despite a wide variety of later sound shifts in English dialects. Modern English has spread around the world since the 17th century as a consequence of

17278-489: The island of Great Britain . The namesake of the language is the Angles , one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to Britain . It is the most spoken language in the world, primarily due to the global influences of the former British Empire (succeeded by the Commonwealth of Nations ) and the United States . English is the third-most spoken native language , after Standard Chinese and Spanish ; it

17441-431: The languages have descended from a single common ancestor called Proto-Germanic . Some shared features of Germanic languages include the division of verbs into strong and weak classes, the use of modal verbs , and the sound changes affecting Proto-Indo-European consonants, known as Grimm's and Verner's laws . English is classified as an Anglo-Frisian language because Frisian and English share other features, such as

17604-401: The last four frames to win 13–12. Johnson and Davis met again in the 1987 final although, on this occasion, Davis was the winner by a score of 18–14. Steve Davis and Terry Griffiths met in the 1988 final. The score was 8–8 after the first day but Davis pulled ahead on the final day and won 18–11. Davis made his seventh successive final in 1989 , meeting John Parrott . Davis led 13–3 after

17767-417: The match 18–12. At 23 years old, Davis was the second-youngest champion. Mountjoy set a new championship record with a highest break of 145 during his semi-final match against Ray Reardon . The 1982 championship was extended to thirty-two players with sixteen seeded players and sixteen qualifiers. There was a surprise in the first round when Tony Knowles beat defending champion Steve Davis 10–1. In

17930-574: The most closely contested matches of all time. It finished at 00:19 and, with an audience of 18.5 million, it remains the most-watched programme in the history of BBC2 , and holds the record for a post-midnight audience for any channel in the United Kingdom. Davis met sixteenth seed Joe Johnson in the 1986 final. Johnson led 13–11 at the start of the evening session and won five of the first six frames to win 18–12. Johnson had trailed 9–12 in his quarter-final against Terry Griffiths but won

18093-399: The next round; or some method of ranking the four quarterfinal losers might be employed, in which case only one round of additional matches would be held among them, the two highest-ranked therein then playing for fifth and sixth places and the two lowest for seventh and eighth. The number of distinct ways of arranging a single-elimination tournament (as an abstract structure, prior to seeding

18256-425: The number thirteen seed, Steve Davis was the favourite for the 1981 championship . He won a close match 10–8 against Jimmy White in the first round and defeated three past world champions to meet fourteenth seed Doug Mountjoy in the final. Davis won the first six frames but was only leading 10–8 at the end of the first day. He led 14–12 at the start of the final evening session and won the next four frames to win

18419-433: The oldest World Champion, aged 45 years, 203 days. The first seven World Snooker Champions all won a championship when in their forties; the last of these was Reardon. It would be another forty years before a quadragenarian won the title again, as Mark Williams won the 2018 championship aged forty-three. The 1979 championship was won by Terry Griffiths who had only turned professional seven months prior to

18582-412: The opportunity to face every other player/team. Also, if the competitors' performance is variable, that is, it depends on a small, varying factor in addition to the actual strength of the competitors, then not only will it become less likely that the strongest competitor actually wins the tournament, in addition the seeding done by the tournament organizers will play a major part in deciding the winner. As

18745-496: The other semi-final. Stevens led 16–14 but Ebdon won the last three frames, including a 138 total clearance in the penultimate frame. The final went to the deciding frame where Ebdon made a break of 59 and clinched the title. There were a record sixty-eight centuries in the tournament, including a record sixteen by Stephen Hendry who made five centuries in the semi-final and a further four in the final. Mark Williams won his second World title in 2003 by defeating Ken Doherty 18–16 in

18908-604: The other. If a small number of teams play in a single elimination tournament, sometimes a consolation bracket is included to allow the eliminated teams to play more than once. This was the format of the Little League World Series until 1992. The format is less suited to games where draws are frequent. In chess , each fixture in a single-elimination tournament must be played over multiple matches, because draws are common , and because white has an advantage over black. In association football , games ending in

19071-586: The players into the tournament) is given by the Wedderburn–Etherington numbers . Thus, for instance, there are three different arrangements for five players: However, the number of arrangements grows quickly for larger numbers of players and not all of them are commonly used. Opponents may be allocated randomly (such as in the FA Cup); however, since the "luck of the draw" may result in the highest-rated competitors being scheduled to face each other early in

19234-426: The prestige varieties among the middle classes. In modern English, the loss of grammatical case is almost complete (it is now only found in pronouns, such as he and him , she and her , who and whom ), and SVO word order is mostly fixed. Some changes, such as the use of do-support , have become universalised. (Earlier English did not use the word "do" as a general auxiliary as Modern English does; at first it

19397-457: The quarter-finals, and met Canadian Cliff Thorburn in the final. The two players were closely matched throughout, the score being tied at 9–9 after the first day and 18–18 after the second. Spencer led 22–20 after the first session on the final day, and pulled ahead to win 25–21 in the final session of the match. Defending champion John Spencer lost to Perrie Mans in the first round of the 1978 championship . The 1977 runner-up Cliff Thorburn

19560-538: The recent News of the World Tournament but had performed badly, losing all eight of his matches. Although Lindrum did not play in the News of the World Tournament, he had been receiving more generous starts in recent handicap tournaments and had even withdrawn from the 1950 Sporting Record Masters' Snooker Tournament in 1950, complaining about his overly generous handicap. Lindrum won the championship, reaching

19723-570: The regular season (or did not take place, in some cases). In international fencing competitions, it is common to have a group stage . Participants are divided in groups of 6–7 fencers who play a round-robin tournament, and a ranking is calculated from the consolidated group results. Single elimination is seeded from this ranking. The single-elimination format enables a relatively large number of competitors to participate. There are no "dead" matches (perhaps excluding "classification" matches), and no matches where one competitor has more to play for than

19886-625: The reign of Henry V . Around 1430, the Court of Chancery in Westminster began using English in its official documents , and a new standard form of Middle English, known as Chancery Standard , developed from the dialects of London and the East Midlands . In 1476, William Caxton introduced the printing press to England and began publishing the first printed books in London, expanding the influence of this form of English. Literature from

20049-421: The remainder of World War II. The championship resumed in 1946 where Joe Davis again met Lindrum in the final. The Royal Horticultural Hall in London was converted to a snooker venue, seating 1,250 for the championships. The match was extended from one week to two, allowing up to 30,000 spectators to be accommodated with prices ranging from 5s to £3. Davis maintained a small lead throughout and won, early on

20212-446: The round at which they enter may be named the first round , with the earlier matches called a preliminary round , qualifying round , opening round , or the play-in games . Examples of the diverse names given to concurrent rounds in various select disciplines: Notes: The knockout round of the 2002 FIFA World Cup tournament: Without any additional matches, the only position a single-elimination tournament can reliably determine

20375-399: The same division, they cannot play each other; in that case, the top seed plays the worst division champion; the second-best division champion plays the wild card team. This is due to the scheduling employed for the regular season, in which a team faces any given divisional opponent more often than any given non-divisional opponent – the tournament favors match-ups that took place fewer times in

20538-431: The score from 5–5 to 14–5. Hendry eventually won 18–9. Hendry made a record twelve century breaks during the tournament. The 1996 tournament saw Peter Ebdon reach the final, beating Jimmy White, Steve Davis and Ronnie O'Sullivan on the way. He met Stephen Hendry in the final. Ebdon led 4–2 in the early stages but Hendry eventually won 18–12 to win his fifth successive title. There were forty-eight century breaks during

20701-471: The second player to make a maximum break in the world championship, during his 10–4 first round win over Tony Drago . Defending champion John Parrott beat Eddie Charlton 10–0, the first of only two whitewashes in the Crucible era (the second being by Shaun Murphy over Luo Honghao in 2019). Stephen Hendry met Jimmy White in the final. White led 14–8 but Hendry won ten frames in a row to win 18–14. Eight seeded players were knocked out in round one in 1992,

20864-404: The semi-finals Jimmy White was ahead 15–14, and led 59–0 in the thirtieth frame, but missed an easy red with the rest. His opponent Alex Higgins then made a sixty-nine clearance and won the deciding frame and the match 16–15. Higgins met Ray Reardon in the final. The score was 15–15 before Higgins won three frames in a row to win the championship, finishing with a clearance of 135, denying Reardon

21027-468: The sense of belonging only to people who are ethnically English . Use of English is growing country-by-country internally and for international communication. Most people learn English for practical rather than ideological reasons. Many speakers of English in Africa have become part of an "Afro-Saxon" language community that unites Africans from different countries. As decolonisation proceeded throughout

21190-446: The six-day final 37–29. 1972 saw the emergence of Alex Higgins . Winning his two qualifying matches, he beat John Pulman, Rex Williams and then Spencer in the final to win the title at his first attempt. At 22 years, 345 days, Higgins was the youngest world champion. Previously only Joe Davis had won the title while under the age of 30, being 26 years, 27 days when he won in 1927. The 1973 Championship marked

21353-483: The source of approximately 28% of Modern English words , and from Latin , which is the source of an additional 28% . As such, though most of its total vocabulary comes from Romance languages , Modern English's grammar, phonology, and most commonly used words in everyday use keep it genealogically classified under the Germanic branch. It exists on a dialect continuum with Scots and is then most closely related to

21516-474: The southern dialects. Theoretically, as late as the 900s AD, a commoner from certain (northern) parts of England could hold a conversation with a commoner from certain parts of Scandinavia. Research continues into the details of the myriad tribes in peoples in England and Scandinavia and the mutual contacts between them. The translation of Matthew 8:20 from 1000 shows examples of case endings ( nominative plural, accusative plural, genitive singular) and

21679-404: The standard of the tables. This was the first year the championship was sponsored under the cigarette brand Embassy . In 1977, the championship moved to its new home at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield , where it has remained ever since. The 1977 championship featured sixteen competitors: eight seeded players and eight qualifiers. John Spencer beat defending champion Ray Reardon 13–6 in

21842-455: The study of English as an auxiliary language. The trademarked Globish uses a relatively small subset of English vocabulary (about 1500 words, designed to represent the highest use in international business English) in combination with the standard English grammar. Other examples include Simple English . The increased use of the English language globally has had an effect on other languages, leading to some English words being assimilated into

22005-1060: The term for these eight matches translates to eighth-final (e.g., in these European languages: "huitième de finale" in French , "achtste finale" in Dutch, octavos de final in Spanish , Achtelfinale in German , åttondelsfinal in Swedish , ottavi di finale in Italian , oitavos-de-final in Portuguese , optimi de finală in Romanian , osmifinále in Czech , osemfinále in Slovak , and osmina finala in Serbo-Croatian ), though this term

22168-697: The title. Williams set a new championship record with a break of 142 in the twenty-fourth match. After this series of matches Pulman played the South African Fred Van Rensburg , winning 39 frames to 12. Davis and Pulman played again for the championship in April 1966. Pulman won four of the seven matches to retain the title. Australian Eddie Charlton challenged Pulman to a 73 frame match in Bolton , played in March 1968. Pulman led 19–17 at

22331-475: The top 32 players of 128 are seeded in Tennis Grand Slam tournaments, it can happen that the 33rd-best player in a 128-player field could end up playing the top seed in the first round. An example of this occurring was when World No. 33 Florian Mayer was drawn against, and defeated by, World No. 1 Novak Djokovic in the first round of the 2013 Wimbledon Championships , in what was also a rematch of

22494-406: The tournament over its first two decades, winning the first 15 world championships before he retired undefeated after his final victory in 1946 . The distinctive World Championship trophy, topped by a Greek shepherdess figurine, was acquired by Davis in 1926 for £19 and continues in use to this day. No tournaments were held between 1941 and 1945 due to World War II , or between 1952 and 1963 due to

22657-412: The tournament was sixty, made by Albert Cope in his semi-final match against Davis, in a dead frame after Davis had won the match. The 1928 Championship was played on a challenge basis, with the other six entries playing-off for the right to challenge Davis in the final. Fred Lawrence progressed to the final, but lost 13–16. The challenge system was dropped in the 1929 event . Davis met Dennis in

22820-409: The tournament, and needed to win two qualifying matches to reach the Crucible. Griffiths was trailing 16–17 against Eddie Charlton in the semi-final, before eventually winning the match 19–17 at 1.40 am. He then beat Dennis Taylor 24–16 in the final, winning the record first prize of £10,000. Canadian Bill Werbeniuk made a break of 142 in his quarter-final match against John Virgo , equalling

22983-470: The tournament. In a single-elimination tournament without any seeding, awarding the second place to the loser of the final is unjustified: any of the competitors knocked out before getting to play the losing finalist might have been stronger than the actual losing finalist. In general, it is only fair to use a single-elimination tournament to determine first place. To fairly determine lower places requires some form of round-robin in which each player/team gets

23146-400: The tournament: Alex Higgins in 1972 , Terry Griffiths in 1979 , and Shaun Murphy in 2005 . Stephen Hendry and Ronnie O'Sullivan have each won seven times to jointly hold the record of most world titles in the modern era. Ray Reardon and Steve Davis have won six titles; John Higgins and Mark Selby four; John Spencer and Mark Williams three; and Alex Higgins two. Hendry

23309-430: The twelve frames on the second day to lead 16–8 but Charlton won the first nine frames on the third day to lead. Reardon then led 23–21 before Charlton won eight frames in a row to lead 29–23, needing just two of the last nine frames to win. However Reardon then won seven frames in a row to lead again and, although Charlton levelled the match at 30–30, Reardon won the deciding frame. The 1976 World Snooker Championship

23472-438: The two conferences the league has) to face the winner of the first-round series between the fourth and fifth seeds in the next round, even if one or more of the top three seeds had been upset in their first-round series; critics have claimed that this gives a team fighting for the fifth and sixth seeding positions near the end of the regular season an incentive to tank (deliberately lose) games, so as to finish sixth and thus avoid

23635-463: The vocabularies of other languages. This influence of English has led to concerns about language death , and to claims of linguistic imperialism , and has provoked resistance to the spread of English; however the number of speakers continues to increase because many people around the world think that English provides them with opportunities for better employment and improved lives. World Snooker Championship The World Snooker Championship

23798-473: The word bite was originally pronounced as the word beet is today, and the second vowel in the word about was pronounced as the word boot is today. The Great Vowel Shift explains many irregularities in spelling since English retains many spellings from Middle English, and it also explains why English vowel letters have very different pronunciations from the same letters in other languages. English began to rise in prestige, relative to Norman French, during

23961-785: The world may include no native speakers of English at all, even while including speakers from several different countries. This is particularly true of the shared vocabulary of mathematics and the sciences. English is a pluricentric language , which means that no one national authority sets the standard for use of the language. Spoken English, including English used in broadcasting, generally follows national pronunciation standards that are established by custom rather than by regulation. International broadcasters are usually identifiable as coming from one country rather than another through their accents , but newsreader scripts are also composed largely in international standard written English . The norms of standard written English are maintained purely by

24124-539: The world, but the number of English speakers in India is uncertain, with most scholars concluding that the United States still has more speakers of English than India. Modern English, sometimes described as the first global lingua franca , is also regarded as the first world language . English is the world's most widely used language in newspaper publishing, book publishing, international telecommunications, scientific publishing, international trade, mass entertainment, and diplomacy. English is, by international treaty,

24287-438: The worldwide influence of the British Empire and the United States. Through all types of printed and electronic media in these countries, English has become the leading language of international discourse and the lingua franca in many regions and professional contexts such as science, navigation , and law. Its modern grammar is the result of a gradual change from a dependent-marking pattern typical of Indo-European with

24450-405: Was adopted in parts of North America, parts of Africa, Oceania, and many other regions. When they obtained political independence, some of the newly independent states that had multiple indigenous languages opted to continue using English as the official language to avoid the political and other difficulties inherent in promoting any one indigenous language above the others. In the 20th century

24613-400: Was between Steve Davis and Jimmy White (in his first final). Davis led 12–4 after the first day but White won seven of the eight frames on the final afternoon. Davis led 16–12 at the evening interval and, despite a comeback from White, Davis won 18–16. In the 1985 final , also known as the black ball final, Dennis Taylor beat Steve Davis 18–17 on the final ball of the final frame, in one of

24776-457: Was defeated 12–13 in his quarter-final match against Eddie Charlton , who won the last five frames. However, Charlton then lost to Ray Reardon in the semi-finals; he was ahead 12–9 after the first three sessions of the match, but Reardon won all seven frames of the fourth session to win 18–14. Mans met sixty-four-year-old Fred Davis in the other semi-final, defeating him 18–16. Reardon won the final 25–18 to claim his sixth world title. He became

24939-518: Was fully developed, integrating both Norse and French features; it continued to be spoken until the transition to early Modern English around 1500. Middle English literature includes Geoffrey Chaucer 's The Canterbury Tales , and Thomas Malory 's Le Morte d'Arthur . In the Middle English period, the use of regional dialects in writing proliferated, and dialect traits were even used for effect by authors such as Chaucer. The next period in

25102-473: Was held at two venues; half the draw was held in Middlesbrough and half in Manchester , which also hosted the final. Alex Higgins won three close matches to reach the final, where he met Ray Reardon. Reardon led 24–15 at the start of the last day and, winning three of the first four frames, took the title 27–16, his fourth successive title. There were a number of problems during the tournament including

25265-531: Was held in Australia in late 1970. For the only time there was a group stage with nine players, with the top four moving on to a knock-out stage. Ray Reardon and John Spencer met in one semi-final with Spencer winning easily. The other semi-final was between two Australians, Warren Simpson and Eddie Charlton . Simpson caused a major upset by beating Charlton. In the final in Sydney, Spencer led throughout and won

25428-483: Was held in Australia. Twenty-seven players competed including eight from Australia, sixteen from the United Kingdom, two from Canada and one from South Africa. Ray Reardon beat John Spencer and Alex Higgins to reach the final where he met Eddie Charlton. The final was held near Melbourne but matches were held in many locations, the semi-finals having been held in Canberra and Brisbane . In the final, Reardon won ten of

25591-505: Was lost except in personal pronouns, the instrumental case was dropped, and the use of the genitive case was limited to indicating possession . The inflectional system regularised many irregular inflectional forms, and gradually simplified the system of agreement, making word order less flexible. The transition from Old to Middle English can be placed during the writing of the Ormulum . The oldest Middle English texts that were written by

25754-533: Was only used in question constructions, and even then was not obligatory. Now, do-support with the verb have is becoming increasingly standardised.) The use of progressive forms in -ing , appears to be spreading to new constructions, and forms such as had been being built are becoming more common. Regularisation of irregular forms also slowly continues (e.g. dreamed instead of dreamt ), and analytical alternatives to inflectional forms are becoming more common (e.g. more polite instead of politer ). British English

25917-509: Was played as an added extra to the main event, a billiards match played over two weeks. The match started on Monday 29 November 1926 and one frame of snooker was played at the end of each session. The final between Joe Davis and Tom Dennis was played over four days in early May at Camkin's Hall in Birmingham. Davis won the first seven frames, and took a winning 16–7 lead on the third day, eventually winning 20–11. The highest break of

26080-551: Was played in Burroughes Hall, London in April 1964 between Pulman and Davis, with Pulman retaining the championship after winning 19–16. Pulman won two further challenge matches played at Burroughes Hall, beating Rex Williams in October 1964, and Davis again in March 1965. In late 1965 Pulman and Rex Williams played a long series of short matches in South Africa. Pulman won twenty-five of the forty-seven matches to retain

26243-401: Was still regarded as a championship record. The success of the 1935 championship resulted in a record 13 entries in 1936 . Joe Davis and Horace Lindrum met in the final, with Davis having won one of his prior matches 29–2 after taking a winning 16–0 lead; whilst Lindrum had won his semi-final by the same score, 29–2, In the final, Lindrum led 26–24 at the start of the final day and then won

26406-528: Was the first professional snooker tournament although the English Amateur Championship has been contested since 1916. Ten professionals entered including most of the leading English billiards players. Matches were over 15 frames with the semi-finals over twenty-three frames and final over 31 frames . The first match played was between Melbourne Inman and Tom Newman at Thurston's Hall , Leicester Square in London. The snooker

26569-489: Was the first to incorporate "world" in its name, being called the World's Professional Snooker Championship . There was also a change in the organisation of the event with the matches being played consecutively at the same venue, Thurston's Hall in London. In the period from 1935 to 1940, nearly all World Championship matches were played there and with good attendances the professionals could make some money from their share of

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