We’re used to sporting terms and phrases being adapted to everyday usage, but one of the oddest examples that I can think of is the word stymie, which was coined as a golf term!
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\nYou see, in the old days of golf, if your ball landed behind another golfer’s ball, if you were not further than 6 inches apart, you would be forced to try to hook your ball around the other player’s ball.<\/p>\n
Here’s a player playing a stymie…<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/legendsrevealed.com\/sports\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/83_1_sbol.jpg\")
<\/center><\/p>\nAs you might imagine, such a scenario was pretty awful to be in, and the term “stymie” was developed to describe such an instance – where a player was put into such a situation, he was “stymied” by the other ball.<\/p>\n
According to the Random House Dictionary, the #1 definition for the word stymie is:<\/p>\n
\u2013noun
\n1. \tGolf. (on a putting green) an instance of a ball’s lying on a direct line between the cup and the ball of an opponent about to putt.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nOf course, though, the term has now become accepted as meaning the tertiary meaning of the word:<\/p>\n
\u2013verb (used with object)
\n3. \tto hinder, block, or thwart.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nI honestly did not know the original meaning of the word, which is why I thought it interesting enough to mention here!<\/p>\n
The legend is…<\/p>\n
STATUS<\/span><\/u>: True<\/p>\n
Feel free (heck, I implore you!) to write in with your suggestions for future urban legends columns! My e-mail address is bcronin@legendsrevealed.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This is the latest in a series of examinations of urban legends related to golf and whether they are true or false. GOLF URBAN LEGEND: The word “stymie” originated as a golf term. We’re used to sporting terms and phrases being adapted to everyday usage, but one of the oddest examples that I can think […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7MjWh-NJ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/legendsrevealed.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3083"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/legendsrevealed.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/legendsrevealed.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/legendsrevealed.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/legendsrevealed.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3083"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/legendsrevealed.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3083\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3084,"href":"https:\/\/legendsrevealed.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3083\/revisions\/3084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/legendsrevealed.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/legendsrevealed.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/legendsrevealed.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}