Farewell to the finishing touch

QUESTION In American football, why don’t they have to touch the ball down to score a touchdown?

THIS is simply due to a rule change in the early years of the development of American football.

It was first played in the 1870s as a combination of rugby and, to a lesser extent, football.

Early rules, formalised in 1876 between Harvard, Princeton, Yale and Columbia universities, were adapted in 1880 by Walter Chauncey Camp, known as the father of American football, to include the line of scrimmage (an imaginary line across the width of the pitch beyond which a team cannot cross until a play begins); the quarterback snap (the backwards throw that marks the start of play); and the series of four downs (tackles).

Early in the sport’s development, the value of scoring plays changed frequently, with an ever-increasing devaluation of the kicking component of the game and increased preference for the touchdown.

Until 1889, a touchdown required the ball to be grounded (touched down), as in rugby, to score the points. Then the rules changed, allowing players to score simply by crossing the goal line with the ball. The change was intended to speed up the game and increase the points tally.

Mike Wilson, Towcester, Northants.

QUESTION Why is the site of the Battle of Barnet in 1471 said to be haunted?

THE Battle of Barnet, on April 14, 1471, was one of the most important engagements of the Wars Of The Roses, the struggle for power between the rival royal houses of Lancaster and York.

The Earl of Warwick, known as the Kingmaker, led a Lancastrian army of 15,000 against Yorkist king Edward IV.

A thick fog enveloped the battlefield, causing the opposing forces to overlap unknowingly. In the ensuing struggle, the Yorkist l eft f l ank crumbled and i ts remnants were pursued off the field by the Lancastrian Earl of Oxford’s men.

However, when Oxford regrouped his force to return to the fray, the overlapping of the armies had caused the battle line to rotate. In the confusion, Top flight: Los Angeles Rams score a touchdown against Atlanta Falcons Oxford’s men found themselves fighting their allies. A cry of treason threw the Lancastrians into disarray and, in the ensuing rout, the Earl of Warwick met his death as he tried to reach his horse.

A legend sprung up that Edward IV had enlisted the help of a weather witch and necromancer called Friar Bungay to cause the fog.

The year before the battle, Lancastrians had claimed that bad weather in the Channel, which had prevented Queen Margaret, Henry VI’s wife, from joining her husband, ‘was done by some sorcery or witchcraft of one named at that days Bungay or such other’.

Friar Bungay had lived in the late 13th century and spent his time studying theology at Oxford and Cambridge.

However, there was also a medieval suspicion of learning and the friar was transformed in the popular imagination from an academic to a sorcerer. What might have started as prayers asking for the intercession of a great mind from a previous century became seen as invocations to a necromancer who had returned from the dead to help Edward IV.

Ever since, the battle site is said to have been haunted by the evil Bungay and the souls of those killed by his evil sorcery.

Richard Daley, Bedmond, Herts.

QUESTION What is the origin of the expression cock-a-hoop?

THE term now means ‘being in a state of elation or boastful high spirits’, but in the 16th century it meant ‘to drink without restraint; to celebrate drunkenly’. It is easy to see how the migration from drunkenness to simple happiness might have occurred!

The term’s origin is a mystery. ‘ Cock’ may originate with the 15th-century term for a spigot — a peg or plug — on a barrel, linking it to drunkenness. The spigot can be removed and placed on top of the barrel — perhaps on one of its hoops, allowing revellers to drink directly from the cask without restraint. This unsourced reference comes f r om t he Glossographia, a dictionary compiled in 1656 by Thomas Blount. It may be based on a line from the The Comedye Of Acolastus, translated from Latin in 1540 by John Palsgrave: ‘Let us sette the cocke on the hope and make good chere.’

However, this translation doesn’t indicate which of the several meanings of ‘cocke’ and ‘hope’ are pertinent.

It’s possible that a cock standing on the hoops of a barrel might have been used as a pub sign in the 14th century.

Records from 1335 show pubs with names such as The Hen On The Hoop and The Cock On The Hoop. There are records in 1825 of a pub in Hanbury Street, Mile End, East London, called the Cock A Hoop. The pub closed in the Twenties and the building has since been demolished.

Just as plausible is that cock-a-hoop is a translation from the French coq a huppe, which means a cockerel raising its crest ( huppe), i.e. putting on a display.

Bob Dillon, Edinburgh.

IS THERE a question to which you have always wanted to know the answer? Or do you know the answer to a question raised here? Send your questions and answers to: Charles Legge, Answers To Correspondents, Scottish Daily Mail, 20 Waterloo Street, Glasgow G2 6DB; fax them to 0141 331 4739 or email them to charles.legge@dailymail.co.uk. A selection will be published but we are not able to enter into individual correspondence.