8-4-21 Vocab

Status
Not open for further replies.

Trivia Master

The Keeper of Knowledge
Forum Host
Joined
Mar 21, 2012
If I used the terms 'chess' and 'balk' what would I be referring to?

credit: @HenryFleming

Edit - Thanks for the question, HenryFleming. As far as I can determine, you have never participated in the game by answering questions, but any time you want to submit a question, we're happy to have it.

And we'd be happy to have you participate as a question answerer, too, any time you wish.

hoosier
 
Last edited by a moderator:
🤔

I had no luck looking the terms up in any Civil War glossary/vocabulary. So I decided you must have thought of something different.

Keeping in mind that the main topic of this Trivia game is the American Civil War, I came to think of the following, and I think that guess is as good as any!

You are referring to the chess game between World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov and IBM's super computer Deep Blue in February 1996. Deep Blue won, while any human player would have balked at performing the risky manoeuvre that led to victory. That part of the game was later compared to Pickett's Charge at the Battle of Gettysburg.
As I'm no chess player, I will not try to describe what happened, but show you the article I found:

1628082047017.png

http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,984175-2,00.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Blue_versus_Garry_Kasparov

Edit - Response revised in subsequent post.

hoosier
 
Last edited by a moderator:
The "chess" is a board used in the flooring of a pontoon bridge supported by boats. Each "chess" was approximately 14 feet long, 12 inches wide and 1 1/2 inches thick. The "balk' was a timber (usually around 25 feet long) laid across the boats from shore to shore in five parallel lines; used to support the "chess".

Source: The Language of the Civil War: https://books.google.com/books?id=3...epage&q=civil war slang chess or balk&f=false
 
If I used the terms 'chess' and 'balk' what would I be referring to?

credit: @HenryFleming
Playing a board game while watching baseball? ⚾
Asking for a friend...




Sent from my Commodore 64 running Windoze 95

Edit - Sorry, 5150, that isn't the Civil War-themed answer we were looking for.

Welcome to the trivia game, anyway. Hope you'll come back and play again (and tell your friend he's welcome to come and play, too. :smile: )

hoosier
 
Last edited by a moderator:
If I used the terms 'chess' and 'balk' what would I be referring to?

credit: @HenryFleming
Components of a pontoon bridge. "Balks" are the cross-tie segments of the frame that connect the floats and support the deck; "Chess" are the planks atop the balks that form the deck flooring or roadway.
 
Have no idea as to even what aspect of the Civil War these relate to. Total guess on "balk" is when a horse refuses to move.

Edit - I agree that horses (and/or mules) would refuse to move at times, and there were certainly plenty of those occasions during the Civil War.

But we needed something more directly related to chess.

hoosier
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Chess is a board game, popular before, during, and since the Civil War.

Balk is what happens when the mule driver wants the mule to go and the mule doesn't think it's what he wants to do right now. :rolleyes:

Edit - Neither of these answers is really wrong, but I should have looked harder for some way in which the two terms were more closely related.

hoosier
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top