In baseball, why is it called an 'inning'?
Thank you for the five stars!
~Pink
Cool! I never would have guessed the origins were so mundane.
Hi, Lexi!
I had wondered about the origins of "inning," too, but until now I
never actually investigated the matter.
A very useful site for looking up word origins is the Online Etymology
Dictionary. Here's that site's entry on "inning":
"inning - O.E. innung "a taking in, a putting in," ger. of innian 'get
within, put or bring in,' from inn (adv.) 'in.' Meaning of 'a team's
turn in a game' first recorded 1738, usually pl. in cricket, sing. in
baseball."
Online Etymology Dictionary
http://www.geocities.com/etymonline/i2etym.htm
A Webzine called "Take Our Word for It" answers the question in this
fashion:
"Inning is simply a form of the word in. Not the familiar preposition
in, mind you, inning is the past participle of the very obscure verb
to in, meaning 'to put in, take in, enclose or include'. An inning is
when a team, or player, is 'in', that is 'in play'..."
Take Our Word for It
http://www.takeourword.com/Issue103.html
(I am somewhat skeptical of the statement that 'inning' is a past
participle. I would call it a gerund, but that is not germane to the
matter of the word's origin.)
Search terms used in locating this information included various
combinations of "inning," "baseball," "origin," and "etymology."
I confess that I am a bit disappointed that the word turns out to mean
nothing more than "a time of being in." Somehow I had hoped that there
would be some fantastic tale of a tobacco-chewing old slugger named
"Spittin' Sam Inning" whose skill at bat was so extraordinary that his
name lives in legend.
Best regards,
pinkfreud
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Why is it called an inning?