subvert, 'Without Let or Hindrance', ump, umpire

 

American Umpire
http://youtu.be/q0t1RaYTuiQ



Dissidents Mass in Tehran to Subvert an Anti-U.S. Rally
By ROBERT F. WORTH
Protesters in Tehran tried to turn a government rally into a protest against the election.

'Without Let or Hindrance': Inclusion and its Subversion from the Medieval to the Modern

7 - 9 July, 2006.

How have distinctions between inclusion and exclusion, between insider and outsider, been articulated and subverted during the past millennium?

Without let or hindrance

Meaning
Without impediment.
Origin
'Let or hindrance' is usually used in the form 'without let or hindrance', denoting something that is free to progress. 'Without' is just a straightforward indication of a negative and isn't an example of the confusing alternative 'outside' meaning of without, as in 'without a city wall'. 'Hindrance' is also straigthforward and only has one meaning. 'Let' is the word in this phrase that causes confusion. What is a 'let' exactly?
When we talk about 'letting something happen', we are using the verb 'to let' in its most common contemporary form, meaning 'to allow'. This has been a common usage since the 10th century. Curiously, let has also been used since the 9th century to mean the exact opposite, i.e. 'to hinder or stand in the way of'. It is the second of these forms that is used in 'let or hindrance'. During the 12th century, the verb was reworked into a noun and obstacles began to be called lets. That version of the word has stayed with us in the language, notably in the game of tennis, where it denotes an obstruction that is specified in the rules and prompts a point to be replayed. Such replayed points are usually the result of the ball clipping the net during a service, but a let may be any interruption to play. Streakers, who are now almost as much of a tradition at the Wimbledon tennis championships as are strawberries and cream, are taken away to the sound of the umpire gravely announcing "play a let"....

subvert verb

/səbˈvɜːt//-ˈvɝːt/ v [T] formal

to try to destroy or damage something, especially an established political system

The rebel army is attempting to subvert the government.

Our best intentions are sometimes subverted by our natural tendency to selfishness.


 (2) （試合中の）短い休止時間, タイム

The ump called time out.
審判はタイムを宣した.

ump

 (ŭmp) Sports.
n.
An umpire.

intr.v., umped, ump·ing, umps.
To serve as an umpire.

umpire[um・pire]

• レベル：大学入試程度
• 発音記号[ʌ'mpaiər]

[名]

1 （競技の）アンパイア, 審判員. ▼badminton, baseball, cricket, table tennis, tennis, volleyballに用いる. ⇒REFEREE 1

a plate ［a base］ umpire
（野球の）球審［塁審］.

2 （争議などの）仲裁者, 裁定人((in ...)).

3 作戦の評価をする将校.

━━[動](他)

1 〈競技の〉審判をする, …の審判員を務める

umpire a championship game
選手権試合の審判をする.

2 〈紛争などを〉裁定［仲裁］する.

━━(自)審判員［仲裁者］を務める

umpire in a labor dispute
労働争議の仲裁をする.

［古フランス語nomper （nonない＋per等しい＝等しくない, かわった→調停のため召喚された第三者）. なお, つづりはa numpireが誤って分析されan umpireとなった. △APRON, COMPARE］

(ŭm'pīr')
n.

1. Sports. A person appointed to rule on plays, especially in baseball.
2. A person appointed to settle a dispute that mediators have been unable to resolve; an arbitrator. See synonyms at judge.

v., -pired, -pir·ing, -pires. v.tr.
To act as referee for; rule or judge.

v.intr.
To be or act as a referee or an arbitrator.

[Middle English (an) oumpere, (an) umpire, alteration of (a) noumpere, a mediator, from Old French nonper : non-, non- + per, equal, even, paired (from Latin pār; see pair).]

WORD HISTORY   Had it not been for the linguistic process known as false splitting or juncture loss, the angry, anguished cry "Kill the ump" could have been "Kill the nump." In the case of umpire we can almost see this process in action by studying the Middle English Dictionary entry for noumpere, the Middle English ancestor of our word. Noumpere comes from the Old French nonper, made up of non, "not," and per, "equal": as an impartial arbiter of a dispute between two people, the arbiter is not equivalent to or a partisan of either of them. In Middle English the earliest recorded form is noumper (about 1350); the earliest dated form without an n is owmpere, from 1440. How the n was lost can be seen if we compare the sequence a noounpier in a text written in 1426-1427 with the sequence an Oumper from a text written probably around 1475. The n of noumpere has here become attached to the indefinite article, giving us an instead of a and, eventually, umpire instead of *numpire. The same process of false splitting is responsible for the forms apron and adder, originally napron and naddre, as well as many other words that once began with n. False splitting also caused some words that originally began with vowels to have an n from a preceding indefinite article added on, such as nickname (from the phrase an eke name) and newt (from an eute).