Talk:Totem tennis

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Requested move 9 April 2021[edit]

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: no consensus. (closed by non-admin page mover) Elli (talk | contribs) 09:32, 18 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]



Totem tennisSwingball – Swingball seems to be the more common (and frequently lowercased) generic trademark name for this game, from a news search. Australian news sources use both "swingball" and "totem tennis", possibly leaning more to the latter, but the game doesn't appear to be Australian in origin. (The article was created in 2005 by an Australian IP editor.) Lord Belbury (talk) 17:10, 9 April 2021 (UTC) Relisting. Elli (talk | contribs) 14:52, 20 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose OP's proposal seems to go against WP:ENGVAR: The English Wikipedia prefers no national variety of English over any other. I'll also note that when I searched these terms, "Swingball" turned up a lot of articles concerning Swing bowling, which could throw off the results. 162.208.168.92 (talk) 19:06, 9 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
ENGVAR does also say that if there's a universally accepted term that all English speakers would recognise, it would be a better choice of title. If the game has no particular national connection and happens to have been written in Australian English, and if (as seems to be the case) Australians sometimes call this game swingball, it can be kept in Australian English while naming the article "swingball".
Searching for a longer phrase like "game of swingball" (or "game of swing ball"), swingball is used eight times as much as totem tennis, in general web results. --Lord Belbury (talk) 19:27, 9 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - The current title is not particularly recognisable for a British English speaker and the proposed title may better meet the standards of WP:COMMONALITY. Provision of sources to show what the WP:COMMONNAME is may be helpful. HumanBodyPiloter5 (talk) 16:38, 10 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per nom. Swingball seems to be the common name around the world, and is obviously also used in Australia so doesn't conflict with ENGVAR. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:30, 12 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per NGRAM[1] (t · c) buidhe 23:06, 16 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Passing comment: "Australians sometimes call this game 'swingball'" is strongly not my experience (this RM is the first time I've heard the term in my life, and we had a totem tennis pole in the backyard growing up); I would be cautious that the "swingball in AusEng" results aren't something like how Google suggests 'gasoline' is nearly as common a term in Britain as 'petrol' (or did a few years ago). Vaticidalprophet 04:44, 17 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Move to tether tennis as COMMONNAME. This isn't an ENGVAR issue as clearly there are multiple names for this game in Australia and other countries. Referring to these NGRAMS results, you can see the massive usage of "tether tennis" in the early 1900s at the inception of the game. The problem with the NGRAMS is the over-representation of non-relevant results for the term "swingball" which render it far less common than it would appear. Moreso, going with "Swingball" would promote that single brand over the more generic and historical term for the game - the branded product Swingball is a version of the game, not the entirety of it. -- Netoholic @ 19:16, 20 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Name again[edit]

Is "Totem tennis" really the most common name for the game, still? As it clearly alludes to a totem pole, I would have figured it would mostly have been discarded and replaced due to a perceived insensibility towards Native Americans. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 18:57, 7 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]