Hey folks! I'm sorry for the delay -- I was busy nearly all of last week singing at my university's graduation ceremonies with the Elizabethan Madrigal Singers. 'Twas a huge success, and the Mads, as we call ourselves, received an invitation to sing again at next year's ceremonies. Woo! As I didn't have as much time as I usually do to conduct my research, I took a few extra days to ensure today's entry was up to par.
That phrase brings us to the topic of today's post: the word par, simultaneously an ancient word and a newcomer to the English language. Dictionary.reference.com gives the origin of the word par as Latin pār, meaning "equal." The English words "peer," an equal, and "pair," two of the same thing, owe their provenance to this word. Its use in the sense of "equal" still persists in modern usage when we say that, say, the satisfaction of publishing your first book is on a par with that of climbing Mt. Washington, or that Ratatat is on par with Deadmau5.*
Yet this word has taken on another meaning since its entry into Modern English. Nowadays the word can still mean "equal," but it more often refers to a standard or norm, usually a benchmark by which we can measure performance or quality. In this sense we can speak of "above par," or higher-than-normal quality; and "under par" or "below par," or lower-than-normal quality. However, it's in the exact opposite sense that the word operates in golf -- the lower your score, the better you're doing, and a golfer who finishes a hole or course with a number of strokes below par is skilled indeed. Why the discrepancy?
There's little doubt that golf popularized the idiom "par for the course." Yet the word par on its own didn't appear in the English language
until between 1615 and 1625, and certainly not in the context of golf. The first mention of golf occurred about a century and a half earlier when James II of Scotland prohibited the sport in a March 6, 1457 Act of Parliament. The use of the word par in reference to golf was first recorded in the late 1800s, and it was not until the early 1900s that the United States Golf Association adopted the term as official golf terminology.
Par as defined by the USGA refers to the number of strokes an expert golfer would require to complete a hole or course under ideal conditions, or a scratch golfer's average playing length of that hole or course. And unlike in pool, the word scratch in golf means the ball's going right where the player wants it.
The USGA defines a scratch golfer as either (1) a male golfer who can hit tee shots an average of 250 yards and can reach a hole 470 yards away in two shots at sea level, or (2) a female golfer who can hit tee shots an average of 210 yards and can reach a hole 400 yards away in two shots at sea level. As scratch golfers' scores determine par for a golf course, a scratch golfer's score is equal to par, meaning he or she is playing at a handicap of zero strokes. In other words, a scratch golfer is a fantastic player, and a golf course's par is a very high standard.
With this idea in mind, how "par for the course" came to mean "typical" or "expected" when it is so obviously exemplary escapes me. As someone who has trouble getting less than five strokes per green on a miniature/crazy golf course, getting par for the course would result in victory dancing.**
Moreover, if par reflects such a high standard, why does the phrase "par for the course" so often refer to negative standards? For instance, on July 16, The Telegraph published an article using the headline "This political blackmail is par for the course." The sample sentence dictionary.reference.com gives for the phrase is, "They were late again, but that's par for the course." An urbandictionary.com user has even gone so far to describe the phrase as another way of referring to Murphy's Law.
Let's review: par, the standard performance for a scratch golfer, is putting a golf ball (smaller than a plum) into a hole (the width of a grapefruit) at least 400 yards away (the length of four American football fields) in two strokes.
Two strokes! That's an amazing feat! An amazing feat which is nonetheless being compared to political blackmail.
I mean, maybe if there were a U.S. Open for political corruption and you were the Tiger Woods of blackmail, I guess you could (should?) be proud of that.***
But seriously now, shouldn't this idiom, for all intents and purposes, describe fantastic things, performances and accomplishments worthy of applause and cheers? And if it refers to behavior befitting a norm or standard, shouldn't it be a standard the performer can be proud of?
Anyhow, as much as dislike what I consider the phrase's misuse, I'm just one word-lovin' man. And so in the spirit of what I think "par for the course" should mean, I leave you with this advice:
Do what you love. Do it well. Make your par something every player on the course strives to match and something they would exult to surpass. I'll be rooting for you.
'Til next time, logonauts.
Information purloined from dictionary.reference.com; The National Library of Scotland, Golf in Scotland (1457-1744); the United States Golf Association; The Telegraph; and urbandictionary.com (warning, lewdness and profanity); image purloined from Cup of Zup
* : Coincidentally, both of these artists' names could pass for Pokémon
** : Watch in conjunction with the Ratatat or Deadmau5 music for extra hilarity
*** : Elijah Simpson winds up for the pitch, and...throws his victim footage of her affair with a high-profile congressman! The crowd goes wild! ... *mild clapping*
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