Let the real experts decide if it was a collision or a hit

Today’s question: Why did the news articles always say the “USS John S. McCain collided with an oil tanker” when it was clearly HIT by the tanker and in the aft part of the ship, no less. Shouldn’t the articles say the oil tanker collided with the USS John S. McCain?

Whoa, there, pard. Slow down. It sounds like your wearing your spurs a bit too tight.

Cleansing breath, OK? In … out … in … out. There, feel better? I do not know all the details of the unfortunate incident under discussion here, and I doubt if you do, either, but for what it’s worth there is a difference between “collide’’ and “hit.”

To collide is to impact directly, especially if violently, while hit is to strike. Your car might collide with another vehicle, but if someone bops you on the head with a croquet mallet you’ve been hit.

I’ll wait for the official Navy report to tell is if there was colliding or hitting going on here, but in the meantime, you really should try to find something else to worry about.

When they show strikeouts on the scoreboard, why is it a backward K?

Baseball scorekeeping is an arcane art.

I say that because I don’t understand it, therefore it is arcane. I have tried to learn scorekeeping and how to play bridge and failed at both.

If the batter swings and misses for a third strike, it is a K.

If it is a called third strike — a strikeout looking — it is scored as a backward K or sometimes as a K-L or as a CK or maybe two no-trump.