Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2017 June 23

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June 23

"sports fielded"?

Considering e. g. the article Big Ten Conference, what exactly does the term "sports fielded" in the infobox refer to? I have to admit that I'm German and that I couldn't really find an appropriate translation. Best--Curc (talk) 11:21, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

How many different sports you can play there, by the looks of it. So both men and women can play 28 different sports. --TammyMoet (talk) 13:14, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

If you look in the section "Sports" you'll see the list. Note that not all sports are played by both men and women. Some are just men, some are just women. But it adds up to 28; 14 by men, 14 by women. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:47, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

One meaning of the verb "to field" is to put a team together to take part in a sport - so you can say that a football team fields several youth teams as well as their main team. In this context it indicates how many different sports are played, for each of which at least one team can be fielded. Wymspen (talk) 20:22, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

Thank you very much! So, the expression appears a bit tricky in this context, doesn't it?--Curc (talk) 23:53, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

Indeed. I have to say that this usage of "field" is unfamiliar to me: I'd say an organization may "field" one or more teams, but not one or more sports. Later in the article it uses the word "sponsored" instead. I think the infobox should be changed to say something like "Number of sports". In addition, the usage of "sport" is problematic, or else the numbers given are wrong. Men's basketball and women's basketball would be one sport, not two. Likewise men's lacrosse and women's lacrosse, and so on. Based on the tables in the article, it appears to me that it should say 18 sports (4 men-only, 4 women-only, 10 both sexes). If 14 men's + 14 women's = 28 is wanted, then "sports" is the wrong word for the label. --76.71.5.114 (talk) 00:04, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

A better word than fielded in this case would be 'sponsored' perhaps. But there's no inherent problem with treating the men's and women's sports as distinct, since they do not compete together.--Jayron32 02:57, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

Of course they are distinct competitions; what they are not is distinct sports, as the label claims. --76.71.5.114 (talk) 05:57, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

Feel free to write to the Big Ten itself and complain about their own terminology.[1] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:25, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for providing a reference. Really I think what's going on is that they're using the wrong word because there isn't a right word with that meaning, but I'll quit on this. --76.71.5.114 (talk) 20:10, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

A much better word, if I've got the context right, would be "hosted". Sports hosted: 28. Akld guy (talk) 01:25, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

"Host" is what the home team does. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:59, 26 June 2017 (UTC)