April 26, 2001

round robin

Having just spent the morning teaching some of the mathematics used for analyzing round robin tournaments, I am curious about the name. The round part is obvious, I think. But to whom does the robin refer?

Weekend tennis players will most likely have played in a round robin. It's simply a tournament (or friendly match) with three or more players in which all of the players play each other at least once. Round robins are not limited to tennis. I participate in squash round robins all the time. In fact, you can have round robins for any racquet game, and for a lot of other sporting events and contests, as well--including chess, bridge, soccer and boxing. The original meaning of round robin had nothing to do with sports, however. It was a term of ridicule applied to Holy Communion. It first appears in print in England in 1546 in a translation of Calvin's A faythful and most godly treatyse concernynge the most sacred sacrament of the blessed body and blood of Christ: "Certayne fonde talkers applye to this mooste holye sacramente, names of despitte and reproche, as to call it Jake in the boxe, and round roben, and suche other not onley fond but also blasphemous names." Why this term was applied to the sacrament of communion is unclear.

By the early 17th century, round robin had another meaning, this time more understandable. The Cassell Dictionary of Slang says it was "a document, typically a complaint or petition, in which the signatories place their names in a circle, thus hiding any form of hierarchy." The 1796 edition of A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue limits its use to sailors, defining it as "a mode of signing remonstrances practised by sailors on board the king's ships, wherein their names are written in circle, so that it cannot be discovered who was the ringleader." In 1847, Herman Melville, who had some experience with ships, wrote in Omoo: "I proposed that a 'Round Robin' should be prepared and sent ashore to the consul." The OED says that round robin is now "used loosely of any such document signed by many persons, frequently in alphabetical order to indicate that responsibility is shared."

That still doesn't answer your question about the robin part in round robin. The sources I consulted don't even speculate as to what it refers to. In fact, the 1997 American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms states flatly that "the source for robin has been lost." There are no real clues in the word alone. Aside from the ornithological meaning, robin is defined as 'a male or female name derived from Robert'. So, pure conjecture leads me to think alliteration is at the core of this phrase, and that robin has no deeper meaning than that. However, as they say here in New York, "that and $1.50 will get you on the subway."

Richard