Talk:Pocket billiards

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[edit] Slang

Pocket billiards is also a slang term. I don't know if that's noteworthy... JustIgnoreMe 22:08, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Huh? "Bling" and "kind buds" and "dirty Sanchez" are slang terms. "Pocket billiards" is a jargon term. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 22:21, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
Not quite what I meant. It's a slang term for masturbation. JustIgnoreMe 00:02, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
Ah. You may be thinking of "pocket pool", which is a slang term for masturbating in public with one's hand in one's pocket playing with one's genitals. >;-) Anyway, doesn't have any effect on this article either way. If at some point someone writes a sourced article on "pocket billiards" being a slang term for masturbation, the most that will need to be done is a disambiguation link. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 14:06, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm embarassed to state that I didn't know it was a genuine sport. In any event, I've now found wikisaurus, which is the place for slang terms. Cheers. JustIgnoreMe 01:17, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
A note about the slang has been added, with references to the BBC and a newspaper, thus trebling the number of citations on this article.... Is the slang confined to British English, or is it more widespread than that, with the US cue sport in fact the minority usage? ;-/ FlagSteward 13:47, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
It's used by governing/industry bodies internationally (though by no means consistently), and has been for something like a century. I recall from Shamos's Encyclopedia that the term gained a lot of currency in the 1930s, because "pool" (formerly a gentleman's game) had gotten a bad rep during the Great Depression as a hustler's game that people fought over, as out-of-work men who were good at pool turned to professional hustling just to get by; cf. the old saying about silly hobbies "Well, at least it'll keep him outta the pool halls!" Anyway, my rede is that the term's origin is British, its ascent American, and its decline general. As per below, even if we want to eventually have nine-ball, etc., covered at pool, pocket billiards would still exist as a general class (including snooker and English billiards as well as pool. The article is serving both purposes for the time being because of the lack of sourced material so far. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 00:38, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Title

Pocket billiards has become synonymous with "pool" and is almost exclusively referred to as "pool" today says the article. Shouldn't it therefore be moved to something like "Pool (pocket billiards)"? -- Picapica

Not really.
  • The article's text is actually wrong, as it superlatively overgeneralizes; the industry does in fact use the longer term regularly.
  • The terms are generally used as interchangeable by the industry today; some bodies prefer the one, some the other.
  • The article is doing double duty, covering both pocket billiards as a class of games that contrast with pocketless carom billiards, and about the sub-class of pool games. I envision them being separate articles after about another year or two of editing, but there's not enough material on hand to sanely split them yet.
  • Pool redirects to Pocket billiards, so no one will get lost.
It's not as messy a situation as "billiards" was, where there were at least three entirely different meanings in play. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 00:38, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
PS: While the salamander articles were still under basic development, I'm sure they had the same problem with the mole salamander (the animal) and mole salamanders (the class of animals, including the former). These days, they've solved this with Ambystoma talpoideum for the specific animal (pool) and Mole salamander for the genus (pocket billiards), and have enough material to support both articles. For now, the "species" of pocket billiards, pool, is covered by the parent "genus" article until there's enough material for a split. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 00:43, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] In popular culture

Surely the game is part of popular culture in its own right?

[edit] equipment section

Amusing as it may be, the note about the typo in the reference about ball sizes detracts from the article, and on top of that, it has a typo itself. I'm removing it, for now.

[edit] Need info on wall clearance from the edge of the table

There should be info telling how much clearance you need between the edge of the table and any nearby walls. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.107.196.117 (talk) 05:00, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Wouldn't hurt anything, but low-priority, as Wikipedia is not an advice column. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 13:48, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Current Image is unencycopedic I think

I don't know that we have any better images of players playing than the one currently at the top of the article, but it hurts my eyes as a player to see any image in an article related to billiards showing a player who is an obvious beginner. If you don't know what I mean, let me assure you that any player seeing that picture—seeing the stance, body alignment, cue bridge, etc.—knows immediately that that person is a rank beginner. More importantly, we convey information through such pictures. While non-players might not know that the picture is of an amateur, they may assume, while reading an encyclopedia article the opposite and try to emulate that (shudder). Furthermore, even if they don't know what they are seeing exactly, anyone can see the awkwardness. We don't have to know ballet well to intuitively recognize when we are seeing grace and fluidity. A great player in their stance stroking correctly looks like a well oiled machine. I think we would do better to have a random billiards-related image than this. To me it's like having a picture of some three year old's fingerpainting in an article on fine art.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 21:30, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Concur strongly; I hadn't even noticed that the pic was there until you posted this, and I looked and my first thought was "wow, they've taught chimps how to play pool?!?" — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 04:31, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] History is seriously lacking

This article is lacking information on the origins and progression of pool. Can anyone add to this and improve the history section? --Bodybagger (talk) 04:07, 28 December 2007 (UTC)


Objectivity questionable: I don´t think calling the association with gambling "unfortunate" (or even fortunate for that matter) is appropriate. That is not a neutral POV. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.147.188.148 (talk) 01:38, 7 May 2008 (UTC)