Word: knack
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Dates: during 1880-1889
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...putting the shot and throwing the hammer are fine openings for new men. We were more or less weak in most of these events last year; we are still weaker this. The number of hurdle racers, too, is smaller than it should be. There is a good deal of knack in this sort of racing, and speed is a somewhat minor consideration. Thus it gives those lacking this latter quality a fine chance to put in good and effective work. In our flat races we stand as we did last year; we have only lost one "first-place" man from...
...from the present outlook, such will not be the case this year. It was felt last year that much depended on the short flat races. Yale and Columbia had fast and experienced hurdlers, while Harvard had none at regular work. Hurdling is a race which requires quite as much "knack" as physical qualities. With such a handicap it was thought unwise to sacrifice any of our sprinters to a probable failure. This year, however, a new hurdle race has been introduced. The distance is 220 yards over ten hurdles 2 ft. 6 in. high. This gives a distance...
This topic suggests further interesting and vital questions, of which we can mention only a few. What exercise can be recommended to the hard student? He has, perhaps, no knack for games; the weights and bars are to him as cheerful as a treadmill; he can not afford a horse, even if he knew how to ride. To him a walk is about all there is left. It is cruelty to compel him to do work which he loathes, and he is likely to get little encouragement to learn games that he does not know. On the other hand there...
...centuries ago, it was an ordinary circumstance to carry on a conversation in Latin, and the control which an average student had over the language was astonishing. When, for example, we remember the wonderful "knacd" the poet Addison had of reeling off good hexameter verse, a "knack" not his alone, but common to most of the then students of average ability, we may form some idea of the system pursued at that time. It is said that even in the present age in the northern countries of Europe, especially Denmark, if a foreigner is unable to converse in the modern...