Tell me a thing, O internets

[desperance]

All my life - well, all my TV-sport-watching life - well, ever since Olga Korbut, basically, I have been watching tiny women do bizarre and implausible things on the asymmetric bars.

Suddenly today, for the first time in my life (and please to bear in mind that I am nearly Very Old; Olga Korbut was a long time ago, and half you young things have never heard of her), I have watched tiny women do those same bizarre and implausible things on the Uneven Bars.

And what I want to know is, is this a British thing, did we just decide to call 'em something simpler? Or is it the other way around, has the rest of the world been calling 'em the Uneven Bars for decades while we clung to our quaint and old-fashioned ways, and have we finally given way? Or has a decree gone out, has the world been dumbed down as one, is it officially decided that no one knows what asymmetric means any more? Did the Olympics change the name? What has happened, what...?

(Whatever it is, I do not like it. Because I am nearly Very Old, I dislike change per se; but asymmetric is beautiful, and uneven is in this context ugly, besides being inherently patronising &c. I do not like it, Gunga Din.)

Comments

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

When I was a wee thing watching Olga Korbut do spectacular things, the American TV announcer said she was doing them "on the uneven parallel bars." At least I think so. I was 4. I am more confident of American TV announcers talking about Nadia Comenici doing spectacular things "on the uneven parallel bars." (Which inspired one of my friends to attempt to take up gymnastics. And cry when the director of the gymnastics school looked at her tall parents and advised the family that they were very likely wasting their time and effort.)

[danjite.livejournal.com]

I can confirm this: In the US it was Uneven parallel bars in 1972. And since.

I prefer asymmetric. But they never ask me.

Also, the structure of the bars has changed radically: Remember how girls used to hold on to the top bar and bang their hips on the lower one? Now one would have to be seven feet tall to manage that.