Bye Week

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Brent from Indianapolis.

Hello, Brent. How are you?

Hi, Brent.

I’m fine. How are you?

Doing well. What’s up?

Well, before I tackle the problem of the National Football League and most of the sports commentators in the country misusing a little word, I wanted to be sure that I’ve got the correct understanding of that word, and the word is by.

And I think the evolution of its misuse began when the National Football League took their 16-game schedule into a 17-week time span so that every team had a week off.

But taking a week off, I don’t know, perhaps just didn’t have the sound of too pedestrian or lacked a sort of formal description.

So that week off pretty soon became an off week.

And then the off week perhaps begged the question of whether the team didn’t play or just didn’t play well, like they had an off week.

So eventually it became known as the bye week.

But I think that the actual meaning of the word bye in that context is the position of one who draws an opponent or no opponent for a round in a tournament.

And so you advance to the next round.

Not simply that you don’t play, but that you’re not scheduled to play in a tournament.

So I just wondered if that is the correct meaning of by, and if it is, how did that word ever originate?

Well, both are good, Brent.

That’s the short story there.

Both uses of by fall very neatly under the larger meaning of by, which is something that is off of the main way or action or is secondary or unimportant.

You’ll find this by in expressions like by election, which is an election, say, in an off year when you ordinarily wouldn’t have one.

So you have to fill a seat that’s suddenly been vacated.

Or you’ll find it in a lay-by.

Do you know what a lay-by is?

Yes.

What’s a lay-by?

It’s the place on the side of the road where you can pull off your car out of the main road or out of the main traffic.

Railroads have them as well.

By the by is the same story.

It means incidentally or by way of a digression.

It’s about something that’s secondary or is supplemental to the main action.

And I think both of these buys that you’re talking about in the NFL, both buy week, which is this is a week that you don’t have a game, right?

And the buy, which is a noun form, which is the – it’s kind of like you’re automatically granted a spot even though you didn’t earn it through winning a competition, right?

Yes. Well, you’re actually scheduled not to have an opponent for that round.

That’s right. You’re taking the secondary route.

Think of it that way. You’re taking the alternate path.

And again, by is a very all-encompassing word, B-Y or B-Y-E as an adjective or a noun.

It serves a great number of purposes, and I think both of these fall very neatly under there.

I wouldn’t blame the NFL for this either.

Similar terms exist in golf and cricket, and I think you’ll find that this by term has existed long before the NFL came along.

Oh, yeah.

But also for the terms of not specifically within a tournament, but just as off to the side or not being used at that point.

Yeah. So, Brent, do you think you’re going to give the NFL a buy on this one then?

I guess I will. I’m somewhat corrected or at least more informed.

No, I think you were good, actually. I don’t think there was a correction involved here.

I think you came to us with a question that needed to be asked in order for you to find clarity, which is what self-education is all about.

Okay. Well, thank you very much.

All right.

Thank you so much, Brent.

Bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

You know, I had a tennis player the other day tell me that her opponent rode away on a bicycle.

Speaking of bi, rode away on a bicycle.

Do you know what that means?

That means basically they ran off with the victory, right?

Well, no, that it was six love, six love.

You know, six zero, six zero is a reference to the two bicycle wheels.

So it looks like a bicycle when you ride it out.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Isn’t that great?

I love that.

I’d heard of bageled.

You know, I bageled my opponent 6-0, but I’d never heard of my opponent rode away on a bicycle.

I love that.

Now that’s pretty good.

I think so.

Martha and I will welcome your questions about everything sports-related.

She’ll answer.

The number to call is 1-877-929-9673 or send us an email to words@waywordradio.org.