Home Forums FineTunedMac Community Lounge Whence "bobsleigh" ?!

As far as I am aware, it should be (and always used to be) called "bobsled" ("a long racing sled with a steering mechanism controlling the front runners"). "Bobsleigh" isn't even given as an alternative in the dictionary.

"Sled" is a "vehicle mounted on runners, used for carrying people or loads over ice and snow; a sledge" or a "light wooden frame on runners, used by children for coasting over snow or ice".

"Sledge" is a "vehicle on low runners drawn by horses, dogs, or other work animals and used for transporting loads across ice and snow".

"Sleigh" is a "light vehicle mounted on runners for use on snow or ice, having one or more seats and usually drawn by a horse" (or by a bunch of reindeer, in the case of Santa Claus).

> "Bobsleigh" isn't even given as an alternative in the dictionary.

Actually, hovering my cursor over "Bobsleigh" (No, Hal, I can't do it with a keyboard command. ) and depressing command-control-D returns "another term for bobsled."

FYI, artie is referring to OS X's built-in dictionary; by default, that's the New Oxford American Dictionary, in the US English version of OS X 10.5, anyhow.

Like sled and 'sledge', sleigh can also be a verb, meaning to ride (on) a sled (sic), although, in the case of sledge, that would be ‘transport in a sleigh’... I hope you get the drift, and won’t be stuck in this synonymic equivalent!

Btw, you may need some redirection: Bob’s definitely associated with both sled and sleigh, although in the latter case, not verb-ally. Curiously, he’s not into sledges at all; perhaps that combination holds a bad connotation for him...

Ancillary (and perhaps more pertinent) query:
The term "bobsled" was used for the Winter Olympics event until recently, perhaps not earlier than 2002. Why the change to "bobsleigh"? Even The World Almanac (a New York Times publication) refers to the event as "bobsledding".

Change? Wasn't it sleigh from the get-go?

Just a gut reaction (no real knowledge), sleighing sounds more like a holiday "activity" [as in a leisurely form of transportation], whereas sledding sounds more like a winter sport. [Although... sleighing also sounds like slaying, which might be more of a blood-sport... but therefore perhaps not very sportsmanlike.]

If that makes any sense it was unintentional luck.

I might have been *trying* to make sense.

[actually, i got a headache trying to dissect those two words... but perhaps in some parallel "quantum" universe. ]