I. Idiom of the Week—“Round Robin”
If you’ve ever played in a round robin tournament, then you know that it is a tournament in which each participant plays against all the other participant, and the person (or team) with the best record at the end of all of the contests is declared the winner of the tournament. Fine, but why is this called a “round robin” tournament?
The phrase actually has nothing whatever to do with a bird, robin or any other kind. "Robin" in this phrase is a corruption of the French "ruban," meaning "ribbon" It seems that in 17th and 18th century France, there was a good deal for the average peasant to complain about, but complaining to the King in particular was not a terribly good idea. The monarch's usual reaction to a petition from his subjects was to seize the first two or three signers and have them beheaded, which was a pretty effective way to reduce the number of petitions received in the future. Not wishing to lose their heads, but bent nonetheless on petitioning for justice, clever peasants came up with the idea of signing their names on the petition in a circle, like a round ribbon. That way, no one's name came "first," and, assuming that there were hundreds of signatures on the petition, it was (hopefully) impractical for the King to punish all the signers. A similar method was adopted by disgruntled sailors in the 18th century British Royal Navy, another institution not known for welcoming criticism. Sailors often signed their names to a petition like the spokes of a wheel, so that no one of them could be considered the leader of a mutiny and hanged.
Today we use "round robin" to describe any event, most often a sporting event of some kind, where everyone takes a turn. There you have it. Another piece of mildly interesting but ultimately useless information.
