WHY “YORKER?”

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXII, Issue 8878, 1 August 1907, Page 1

WHY “YORKER?”

“What is a yorker?” Angelina asks Edwin when he, burning with euItbusiasm for the noble game, takes her to see a cricket match. Having carefully explained the terrors of /this kind of ball, he is asked, “But why is it called a yorker?” Probably he will say he does not know, or if he is particularly or harmlessly insane about cricket, lie may say, like the English professional when asked the same question, “Why, Wiiat else can you call it?” Mr Andrew Lang, who worthily represents literature in the pavilion at Lords, and who thinks that had he studied iiis Greek grammar as deeply as he lias studied works on cricket lie might now [occupy some distinguished acadenvca' positiou, believes he has solved the problem, with the help of an ox-captain of a University eleven. When lie was a hoy a yorker was known as a “ block pitch,’’which exactly described the ball. A yorker first touches ground just at the point whovo the batsman tabes guard. The batsman, even when his name is writ large in “Wisdeu,” is apt to be “enticed’’ into thinking the ball a half-volley and slogging it, with the result that as some cricket reporters would have it, “there is .a row in the timber yard. ” The “ block-p’ tch, ’ ’ from its enticing' “nature, came to be known as a “tice.” Now comes the secret. By a process analogous to the change from “Cicero’’ to “Kikcro, ” “tice” came to be pronounced ‘‘ tike” The Yorkshire men have long been playfully called “tykes,” so we have the following stages “tike” —“tyke” (Yorkshueman) — yorker. This is scientific theory, and you have to go a good way round to get at the truth. But how precious it is when found! There is the little difficulty that Mr Lang is not sure whether people did pronounce “tice” as “tike.” Opposed to this theory is the much simpler one that “tices” were bowled with special success by Yorkslil .e bowlers, aud that “tices” were therefore called yorkers, just as certain sword strokes were called “the Lockerby Lick” aud “le coup do Jaruac. ” But here again we have uncertainty. There seems to be no certainty that Yorksbiremen did excel in tire bowling of “tices.”