Talk:chinaman

Since the usage note says it has two opposing meanings, should this be in Category:English contranyms? I don't know enough about cricket to say. Equinox ◑ 23:38, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Hmm, this is odd... the one definition is "A ball, bowled by a left arm unorthodox spin bowler, with the wrist action of a leg break, but which spins from off to leg for a right-handed batsman"; the other is "Such a ball bowled with the action of a googly", where googly is defined as "A ball, bowled by a leg-break bowler, that spins from off to leg (to a right-handed batsman), unlike a normal leg-break delivery", i.e. the same kind of spin is described, the only discernible difference is that a googly proper is defined as being bowled by "a leg-break bowler" and a chinaman is defined as being bowled by "a left arm unorthodox spin bowler". This makes it seem like def three ("Such a ball bowled with the action of a googly") is the same as def 2, not "opposing" in meaning at all. Who around here knows cricket? - -sche (discuss) 02:41, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

@SemperBlotto Equinox ◑ 19:18, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

I know next to nothing about cricket but FWIW the OED defines it as "A left-handed bowler's offbreak to a right-handed batsman." and includes these two quotes:

1955 K. R. Miller & R. S. Whitington Cricket Typhoon i. ii. 32 "In..Yorkshire, the ‘Chinaman’ is regarded as the lefthand bowler's off-break... In Australia..the ‘Chinaman’ is..the left-hander's googly."

1963 Times 11 May 9/7 "I understand the ‘Chinaman’ to be simply an off break bowled out of the back or side of the hand by a left-handed bowler—that is, the ball comes in to a right-handed batsman from the off and the left-handed bowler's action in bowling is equivalent to that of the right-hander in bowling a leg break. I believe the term was first used in referring to this style of bowling practised before the last War by Ellis Achong, who, although he played for the West Indies, was in fact a Chinese."

--Droigheann (talk) 10:26, 13 March 2020 (UTC).

I have updated (corrected) the definition. SemperBlotto (talk) 10:31, 13 March 2020 (UTC)