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

[athenais.livejournal.com]

I've always heard them referred to as the uneven bars. That's what they were in 1969 when I was on the gymnastics team at my school, age 12. They were my favorite equipment.