With my passion for badminton and my environment's negetive niews towards the sport, I decided to do my grade 12 speech on badminton. Its my final year in highschool and i wanted to leave an impression.

A lot of the information is from this site. I understand that the history of badminton is VERY abbreviated and i tweaked some facts but nothing too major. I just took out the words "speed at impact" ^_^.

Should I just take out the history and cram in other stuff? I think history will be a little boring.

Anything that you guys feel I should add? Remove? Fix?

Lets show the world the strength of badminton! (by the way the speech has to be 3 minutes).


Badminton


What sport requires strength, endurance, wit as well as mental capabilities? None other than the sport of badminton. I’m sure that you’ve all heard of this great sport and perhaps you’ve even enjoyed it at one point in your lifetime. Unfortunately, most people don’t even consider badminton a sport and the few who do, see it as a “sissy sport”. I am here to shatter this view and to prove that badminton is as challenging as your North American Macho sports like football, soccer and tennis.
It all began around 2000 years ago when a small child was gifted with a paddle and a ball with lots of strings attached to it. The child was to try to keep the ball up for as long as he could. This game was the origin of badminton called shuttlecock and battledore. By the end of World War I, a brilliant British soldier in India created a net for this game and two people co-operated to keep the shuttle up for as long as possible. However, they soon realized that it was more fun to keep the shuttle away from each other and thus the sport badminton was formed. Badminton gained so much popularity at that time that it challenged soccer as a mass sport.
Badminton’s popularity continues today as it is hailed as the second most popular sport in the world. Lets take a country where badminton is least popular – America. A 1993 study revealed that more than 1.2 million Americans play badminton at least 25 times a year, 760,000 Americans call badminton their favorite sport, and more than 11.2 million Americans played the sport at least once during the year. Internationally, more than 1.1 billion people watched the 1992 Olympic badminton competition on television.
Despite its popularity, badminton is also one of the most underrated sports in history. I’ve had a shameful experience when someone laughed at me for saying “I play badminton as a major sport”. I will dispel this belief momentarily. Badminton is the world’s fastest racket sport. Yes it is nearly twice as fast as tennis and almost 1.5 times faster than squash. The fastest recorded speed of a shuttlecock is 332 km/h or 206 miles/h compared to the fastest tennis serve 113 miles/hour. To compare badminton and tennis even further, lets take as an example the 1985 All England Tennis Championship and the World Badminton Championships. The tennis match lasted 3 hours and 18 minutes whereas the badminton match lasted 1 hour and 16 minutes. During this time, 1004 tennis shots were made, compared to the 1972 badminton shots. Finally, the distance covered during the match was 2 miles for tennis and 4 miles for badminton. Note that badminton players competed for less than half the time, yet ran twice as far and hit nearly twice as many shots.
Notwithstanding its 2000 year history, its popularity and even statistics of it being arguably the most demanding racket sport in the world, badminton players suffer everyday from the misunderstanding of the public. I was shocked and angered that badminton was listed under backyard sports on E-bay and took it as my personal mission to redeem the great name of badminton. Lets just ask ourselves this question: How many football players, rugby players, tennis players or even soccer players can even react to a shuttlecock coming toward you at a speed of 332 km/h?

Nothing more to add! It is already impressive enough, I must say for a 3 minutes speech. I like the idea of throwing questions at the audience that made them sit up and ponder. I learnt some stuff I was ignorant about though I have been playing for nearly 30 years already. Shame on me! Thanks for sharing. Good stuff.

the information is really good, dont need to change anything there. the thing is that when i was reading the speech, i was thinking to myself that this isnt really gr.12 material...you writing level should be much higher than this


just my opinion

Pretty good start. However, 'cause I'm a perfectionist, I think I would rather prefer to nitpick on it, would that be ok with you? I'll copy it, make my corrections and repost. So far, I note that you have the required 5 paragraphs down (good job), some nice attention-getters, solid statistics and facts to back your argument up, and it's not too bad so far. So the parts I'm going to correct are:

1) Grammar- A few mistakes. The difference between no mistakes and a few can decide between an A- or B+, so I'm going to get that.
2) Simplifying certain thoughts- The attention span of audiences tend to be short, and it's great to add humor and quotes, so for example, your last sentence: "How many football players, rugby players, tennis players or even soccer players..." can simply be shortened to: "How many people", or maybe "How many athletes", or even perhaps "How many human beings" or "how many world-class athletes". By listing those examples of sports (football, rugby, etc.), you make it start to become slightly repetitive.

Before you start saying that it's "good enough," LET me say something: It is good enough. I'm just trying to get you the A+ if possible.

Note: I said "if possible" because I don't know if your teacher is biased towards or against you.;)

madman and jgao, you guys flattered me too mcuh. I'm glad I unveiled a new part of our cult.

hiroisuke, thank you so much for looking deeply into it. I must agree, I was wondering if people would doze off in certain sections such as the stats and history. I would be grateful to hear any suggestions. I would like to keep the last part the way it is because it compares badminton to the macho North American Sports that I promised to do in my intro.

I edited it, and here's what I've written:


What sport requires strength, endurance, and wit as well as mental capabilities? None other than the sport of badminton. I’m sure that you have all heard of this great sport and perhaps you have even enjoyed it at one point in your lifetime. Unfortunately, most people do not even consider badminton a sport, and the few who do, see it as a “sissy sport”. I am here to shatter this view and to prove that badminton is as challenging as your North American Macho sports, namely football, soccer and tennis.
It all began approximately 2000 years ago when a small child was gifted with a paddle and a ball with strings attached to it. The child was to try to keep the ball up for as long as he could. This game was the origin of badminton called shuttlecock and battledore. By the end of World War I, a brilliant British soldier in India created a net for this game, and two people cooperated to keep the shuttle up for as long as possible. However, they soon realized that it was more fun to keep the shuttle away from each other, and thus the sport we now call badminton was formed. Badminton gained so much popularity at that time that it challenged soccer as a mass sport.
Badminton’s popularity continues today as it is hailed as the second-most popular sport in the world. Let’s take a country where badminton is least popular – America. A 1993 study revealed that more than 1.2 million Americans play badminton at least 25 times a year, 760,000 Americans call badminton their favorite sport, and more than 11.2 million Americans played the sport at least once during the year. Internationally, more than 1.1 billion people watched the 1992 Olympic badminton competition on television.
Despite its popularity, badminton is also one of the most underrated sports in history. I’ve had a shameful experience when someone laughed at me for saying “I play badminton as a major sport”. I will dispel this belief permanently for all of you. Badminton is the world’s fastest racket sport. Yes, it is nearly twice as fast as tennis and almost 1.5 times faster than squash. The fastest recorded speed of a shuttlecock is 332 km/h or 206 miles/h compared to the fastest tennis serve, which is 115 miles/hour. To compare badminton and tennis even further, let us take as an example the 1985 All England Tennis Championship and the World Badminton Championships. The tennis match lasted 3 hours and 18 minutes, whereas the badminton match lasted 1 hour and 16 minutes. Yet, though the badminton match took place over a shorter time as compared to the tennis one, during these matches, 1,004 shots were made in the tennis match, compared to the 1,972 shots in the badminton match. Finally, the distance covered during the match was 2 miles for the tennis match and 4 miles for the badminton one. Note that badminton players competed for less than half the time, yet ran twice as far and hit nearly twice as many shots.
Notwithstanding its 2000 year history, its popularity and even the statistics of it being arguably the most demanding racket sport in the world, badminton players suffer everyday from the misunderstanding of the public. I was shocked and angered that badminton was listed under backyard sports on E-bay and took it as my personal mission to redeem the great name of badminton. Let us just ask ourselves this question: How many professional athletes can even REACT to a shuttlecock coming towards them at a speed of 332 km/h?



The stuff highlighted in red are the changes I made. You don't have to use what I wrote, but it's just what I might use if I were in your position. Oh, and may I suggest you add some quotes? Makes it authentic. Good luck!

wow you are very good at grammar. Thanks, I fixed most of what you listed except a few that sounded too formal.

Thank you so much.

What about that international badminton players can burn upwards of 1000 calories an hour. Compare that to any other sport to help prove ur point.

hmm, that is an interesting suggestion. I will look for how much tennis players burn in an hour and see if I can add it in somewhere.

I just realized that my speech is more towards 4 minutes long if I emphasize everything.

I think I'm going to cut down on the history with something like this.

Badminton evolved over a course of 2000 years until it became the sport familiar to us today. At this time, badminton was so popular that it challenged soccer as a mass sport.

Its popularity continues today...

As suggested by some, I would start off by asking a witty question to catch your audience's attention like:

My friends, can you name a bird that can fly at 332 km/h or 206 miles/h? (Then pause for an answer or answers from them.)

Well there is one special bird that can do that and it is called 'Badminton'!

I'm sure you must have heard of this bird when you play with it in your garden, in the backyard or anywhere else in the open. Yes it is pretty enjoyable and you laugh at how your friend missed hitting the bird or when the wind totally confused its flight.

But do you know that Badminton is also played at the Olympics, at the most competitive level, world class, in a totally different environment with all the glamour and excitement?

(Then you could touch a little bit about badminton history and the rest of your story. But your story on the paddle with a ball may not be the first??? Do you also know that in China they used their legs to kick small device with feathers?)

Hope this is of some help.

So when is this speech? And how long should it be (5-10 min, right?)?

Loh.. badminton is not a bird... maybe a shuttlecock will do.
Anyway nice article.

Loh.. badminton is not a bird... maybe a shuttlecock will do.
Anyway nice article.

That's the whole idea. Let them guess what sort of bird. A bird that is "shuttled by a cork (or should it be a male bird - a cock?)". :D :D :D

It's quite nice speech. Manduki, you've amazed me by the material you prepared. It doesn't seem you are a grade 12.

HAve enjoy your speaking time ... :>

Great idea to use your speech in this way :)

You should beware, however, that you are compromising your integrity by over-selling your argument. Some of your claims are simply false, and you might well be exposed for that by (say) a tennis fan in the audience.

In particular, the fastest tennis serve is not 115 mph, but 153 mph (Andy Roddick). Your claim that badminton is the second most popular sport worldwide lacks evidence, and I believe it is probably false (the same claim was removed from the Wikipedia article for the same reason). Dressing up the claim with evasive phrasing such as "badminton is hailed as the second most popular..." does not help.

I don't want to discourage you, but it would be better to let the truth about badminton speak for itself. Factually incorrect or dubious statements undermine your otherwise strong position.

On a general note, this is a very common cause for failure in writing. Writers, even professional ones (like me), are prone to over-writing because they are not confident of their material's quality. Writers should beware whenever they feel the urge to cover up their anxiety with bombast: the result is insincere writing.

Eh. We made a mistake. It was 153, not 115. Sorry 'bout that. I knew there was a five somewhere, just forgot where to put it.;)

It's not the second-most popular? It's losing to soccer/football and what else? Basketball? It should be AT LEAST the second-most popular.:D

It's not the second-most popular? It's losing to soccer/football and what else? Basketball? It should be AT LEAST the second-most popular.:D
This is a huge assertion, and therefore needs compelling evidence if you are to make it. Otherwise intelligent listeners will instantly distrust you.

Just because you've heard someone say this on some website doesn't make it true. The enthusiasm of sports players often leads them to accept such claims without any evidence; everyone wants to think that his sport is special.

Badminton is undoubtedly a very popular sport worldwide, but so are many others.

It's hard to find any reliable statistics, although football generally seems to be recognised as the most popular sport (especially when you use the term "football" in a broad sense).

The lack of information is good cause for scepticism; the best information I could find in a quick Google search gives me this:

http://www.johann-sandra.com/popular.htm

....but the data is clearly dubious, as the authors explain.

It's very hard to estimate total participation in a sport. The best practical measure is probably total number of affiliated members, which should be easy. Yet this measure is strongly biased, because some sports boast an extremely large number of unaffiliated players, especially in the less developed world.

Since badminton probably has a high percentage of affiliated/registered players (due to the club system and the need for courts), you would probably be better finding the registered number of players. This in itself should be impressive enough.

@Loh- that is a very creative way to start the speech. A master with words ^_^. I think I'm going to include that in my intro as the attention grabber. thanks a lot for that suggestion.

@hiroisuke - no, its 3-3.5 mins T.T Too much to say and too little time. I did a run through today and it was 3.5 so I may have to cut down a little.

@ ants - I take no credit for this article. Its basically a summary and organisation of what others posted on this forum and worldbadminton.com

@Gollum - I did not intend to lower the fastest tennis serve. I guess wikipedia messed up on that as well. Thanks for pointing that out. Furthermore, I thought I saw and article somewhere listing the sports. Soccer was number one, badminton was number 2 and i think basketball was 8th place. I'll do more research and edit it out if necessary. I checked out your site and it kind of surprised me. I would assume soccer is the most popular sport in the world and volleyball to be wayyy down there. I'll edit it out to "its popularity continues today as over 200 million people participate worldwide in the sport regularly".

thank you for all your comments. I'll edit it and upload it tonight

If you are at 3.5 minutes, I'd recommend leaving it at that. Most people get stage jitters and may speak faster when actually presenting than when they're rehearsing. :cool: (I know I do :D )

@Gollum - I did not intend to lower the fastest tennis serve. I guess wikipedia messed up on that as well.

Not in "my" badminton article they didn't :D

I checked out your site and it kind of surprised me. I would assume soccer is the most popular sport in the world and volleyball to be wayyy down there. I'll edit it out to "its popularity continues today as over 200 million people participate worldwide in the sport regularly".

First, it's not my site.

Second, I think you are right about soccer. Volleyball claiming to have nearly 1 billion players worldwide is rather far fetched. The article authors come to the same conclusion.

My point really is that that article was the best I could find, and it's not very good at all :(

I thought the typical high school speech is 5-10 minutes? That's what I typically have to do.

Just asking though, is it really fitting to have you speak about badminton?

Some other things you might consider :
-Badminton is in a way a universal game. It can be played at all levels and at all ages, from young kids to 70+ year old senior citizens. Soccer may be more popular but you will find very few 50 year old active soccer players.
-The game combines power, fineness and deception with thunderous smashes as well as delicate drop shots (all drop shots should be reverse slice) that can also be executed with deception.
-Alone among racquet sports, badminton has an almost infinite number of target points in space to hit to, in addition to the surface of the opponent's side of the court. The younger and fitter players also get airborne to gain elevation.
-According to the IBF badminton now has 250 million players worldwide, with China alone having 140+ million.

@Crazypeetee246: I do get those too ^_^. Bt it was 3.5 in class when i was presenting so i might want to leave a little space.

@Gollum: I think I'm going to take out the second most popular sport and list the number of badminton players worldwide.

@Hiroisuke: We invite all parents to come on speech night and it dragged on for too long in the past so the school cut it down to 5 minutes per student including time to go up, be introduced, etc.

@FEND.: haha the teacher who is marking my speech is a chemistry teacher. She actually expected me to do my speech on plastic and its effect on humans (my ISU topic for chem). She was like, "You're inviting 20 parents to come hear your speech and you're talking about badminton? Who would want to hear about badminton?" but today she was like "it was a very nice speech. Interesting facts there..." . Also, since its my last year in highschool, I want to do all that I can to inform people of badminton and possibly attract interest for our team (our team is quite weak)

@Taneepak: awesome. Those are great stats that support my argument. I'll load it up some more. thanks a lot.

Thank you to everyone who responded and helped my speech become more accurate/enlightening. Keep them coming :P

thanks~

I don't know much else to say, but....."Rock the World!"

Or in this case, perhaps just your classroom. But no matter what, have fun, try to relax, and most importantly...






scroll down...







keep going...






tell us how you did!

Heres the upadated version with many of the changes suggested. I couldn't fit in all the suggestions/stats due to context and length but I did try to fit in as much as possible.

More criticism/ideas would be appreciated. This speech is not really for marks as we are only being marked on presentation skills. I just want people to discover badminton a little further. Please aid me in this mission.

Specail thanks to Loh who basically made my intro. If you have a problem with me doing this, please let me know and I'll change it ^_^

thanks.


Badminton


Has any of you seen a bird flying at a speed 332 km/h? Well, there’s a special bird that can do that and it called a badminton shuttlecock. I'm sure you must have heard of this bird when you played with it in the backyard or anywhere else in the open. Yes it is pretty enjoyable and you laugh at how your friend missed hitting the bird or when the wind totally confused its flight. But do you know that Badminton is also played at the Olympics, at the most competitive level, in a totally different environment with all the glamour and excitement? I am here today shatter the view of badminton as a sissy sport and to prove to you that professional badminton is as challenging as your North American Macho sports like football, soccer and tennis.
It all began around 2000 years ago when a small child was gifted with a paddle and a ball with lots of strings attached to it. The child was to try to keep the ball up for as long as he could. This game was the origin of badminton called shuttlecock and battledore. By the end of World War I, a brilliant British soldier in India created a net for this game and two people co-operated to keep the shuttle up for as long as possible. However, they soon realized that it was more fun to keep the shuttle away from each other and thus the sport badminton was formed. Badminton gained so much popularity at that time that it challenged soccer as a mass sport.
Badminton’s popularity continues today as over 250 million people compete professionally with China alone having over 140 million participants. Let’s take a country where badminton is least popular – America. A 1993 study revealed that more than 1.2 million Americans play badminton at least 25 times a year, 760,000 Americans call badminton their favorite sport, and more than 11.2 million Americans played the sport at least once during the year. Internationally, more than 1.1 billion people watched the 1992 Olympic badminton competition on television. Despite its popularity, badminton is also one of the most underrated sports in history. I’ve had a shameful experience when someone laughed at me for saying “I play badminton as a major sport”. I will dispel this belief permanently for all of you. Badminton is the world’s fastest racket sport. Yes it is faster than tennis and yes, it is faster than squash. The fastest recorded speed of a shuttlecock is 332 km/h or 206 miles/h compared to the fastest tennis serve 153 miles/hour. To compare badminton and tennis even further, let’s take as an example the 1985 All England Tennis Championship and the World Badminton Championships. The tennis match lasted 3 hours and 18 minutes whereas the badminton match lasted 1 hour and 16 minutes. During these matches, 1,004 shots were made in the tennis match, compared to the 1,972 shots in the badminton match. Finally, the distance covered during the match was 2 miles for the tennis match and 4 miles for the badminton one. Note that badminton players competed for less than half the time, yet ran twice as far and hit nearly twice as many shots.
Notwithstanding its 2000 year history, its popularity and even statistics of it being arguably the most demanding racket sport in the world, badminton players suffer everyday from the misunderstanding of the public. I was shocked and angered that badminton was listed under backyard sports on E-bay and took it as my personal mission to redeem the great name of badminton. Let’s just ask ourselves this question: How many football players, rugby players, tennis players or even soccer players can even react to a shuttlecock coming towards them at a speed of 332 km/h?

Hi Manduki,

Great job!

Now that you've got a good idea of what you want to say, please say it loud and clear!

No use having an excellent piece when you can't deliver it well.

Some hints:

1. Take a good, deep breath (silently) before you commence and smile. Stand erect, don't droop your shoulders, feet slightly apart (shoulder length) to give you good support.

2. Look at the audience and keep eye contact to give the impression that you are engaging them. If you feel more comfortable, you may look slightly above their heads, but don't stare at the ceiling.

3. Don't rush, especially during the initial stages. A pause at the right places like after a full stop, or when you want to emphasize certain words or phrases, may give the right impact. Forget the time limit, don't let it bother you as you have already timed yourself during rehearsal and everything's fine.

4. If you can, try to memorise your score or at least the more important parts of your speech. Your phrases, sentences and paragraphs should link logically and smoothly and you should look at your draft to see whether this is the case, otherwise change it.

5. Remember this is supposed to be fun and it gives you the opportunity to talk about the subject you like most. So inspire your audience with the excitement that you have experienced with this feather game. Say it in a way that they can also experience it, audible, understandable and exciting!

Good Luck!

Shouldn't this bit "Has any of you seen a bird flying at a speed 332 km/h?" be Have any of you? I'm pretty sure that's the correct use of language.

Shouldn't this bit "Has any of you seen a bird flying at a speed 332 km/h?" be Have any of you? I'm pretty sure that's the correct use of language.


Of course FEND is right - the right word is 'Have'. Suggest you go through your grammar again to check for simple mistakes. ;)

(all drop shots should be reverse slice)
I'd like to see how you can hit a crosscourt drop from your forehand corner with reverse slice :p

I'd like to see how you can hit a crosscourt drop from your forehand corner with reverse slice :p

Maybe deceptive Zhao Jianhua in his good mood could do it. :D

I'd suggest the following opening:
Have any of you seen a bird flying at a speed 332 km/h? Well, there's a special bird that can do that and it called <pause for suspense> shuttlecock. I'm sure you must have heard of this bird when you played badminton with it in the backyard ...

Good luck with your speech.

@Loh- thanks a lot. I will definately have this memorized but I do tend to rush a little. I will try my best to calm down ^^

@FEND - Haha you're definately right I should go through grammar check again -...- Thank you for pointing that out.

@Gollum - I can! Muahahhahahahhahahhaha (to be honest I struggle doing slices and try to avoid doing it in a game unless I feel adventurous :P

@mettayogi - ah, my ultimate sorrow. Sadly enough, most people have no clue what a shuttlecock is. They'll probably think its really a type of bird. But i will of course have that dramatic pause. Thank you for your suggestion.

Another suggestion mate, bring a shuttle and use it as an object of observation :P (sorry my brain is melting from study).

I give you A+.
If you mention foot ball, rugby and tennis players then add cricket and base ball players also. Because they are facing balls thown towards them at avery high speed.
What is the difference batween soccer and foot ball ?

Mate, soccer to the americans and aussies is equivelent of our football. To them football means NFL, and AFL respectively...

I'd like to see how you can hit a crosscourt drop from your forehand corner with reverse slice :pit's possible...btu your aim coul dbe tricky:p
you'll have fake a normal drop towards the wall on your left (if you're a righty) and then reverse slice it into court...
I'm gonna try it out tonight...who knows I might score a point:D

you'll have fake a normal drop towards the wall on your left (if you're a righty) and then reverse slice it into court...

Not the best deception, is it?

"Hey look, I'm going to hit the shuttle out of court deliberately.....(he'll never guess I actually mean to hit it in)" :D

WHAT?! Seriously, some of us are off-topic.

1) Yes, we United States of Americans (Whoa, never heard that before, we usually call ourselves Americans, which is actually technically incorrect: The Americas take up pretty much most of the entire Western Hemisphere) do call what most countries call "football", soccer. Football in our country is something completely different, and in truth, has little to do with our feet.

2) Good luck with the speech, Manduki. Also, it'd be great to use a visual, like say a video of an extremely high-speed match on a CD, put onto a computer, and hook up to projector. Visuals always are useful in amazing ppl.

3) Yes, I'm a hypocrite.:D I complained about ppl being off-topic and I just went off-topic in my #1 thingy. Sorry 'bout that.

I did my speech today and I think it went pretty good ^_^

I was talking a little fast and I deleted a portion of my speech due to time but other than that, i think it went fine.

thanks for all your help guys!

Congrats and good work, our young badminton ambassador!

What did your teacher say? What sort of feedback did you get from your peers, your classmates?

Yeah, how'd it go? It was awesome, right? 'Cause badminton is awesome...

I got 10/10 and my teacher was quite impressed. The audienced seemed a little uninterested during the history part but they seemed pretty interested as I moved along into the stats.

My peers said my speech was good and I got like 20 people who promised to join the badminton team and it doesn't start till Feb ^_^

Thank you for all your help guys. I couldn't have done it without you.

Now we have at least 20 people who will know more about badminton in canada! ^^

I got 10/10 and my teacher was quite impressed. The audienced seemed a little uninterested during the history part but they seemed pretty interested as I moved along into the stats.

My peers said my speech was good and I got like 20 people who promised to join the badminton team and it doesn't start till Feb ^_^

Thank you for all your help guys. I couldn't have done it without you.

Now we have at least 20 people who will know more about badminton in canada! ^^

Brilliant! Well done :)

Not the best deception, is it?

"Hey look, I'm going to hit the shuttle out of court deliberately.....(he'll never guess I actually mean to hit it in)" :D
I'll get back to you when I pull it off;):D

the most weird one till now was a backhand slice in the forehand corner: stand with both shoulders facing net, shuttles comes up to forehand, swing like cross clear (outta court) but slice it with the 'back side' of your racket..it shoudl go semi straight...my opponent didn't knwo what hit him..and I was laughing my ass off..It wasn't a 'real' match, we were dicking around..

errr...topic anyone?
congrats on your 10/10! and your new teammates;)

Awesome. Manduki has contributed to the glory of badminton, liberating more souls from badmintonunalethiaitis. For GLORY! JK. But yeah, good job, with awesome score and getting more people interested.

At my school, of the roughly 50-70 ppl that play every year, only about 20 are truly interested: Everyone else just wants PE credit and thinks that badminton is an easy sport. Still working on breaking that image, as we were winless for 11 years straight, and only won 5 (out of 24) games in the past two years. Hope you have better luck, Manduki!

Contragulations Manduki for scoring 10/10.http://www.badmintoncentral.com/forums/images/icons/icon14.gif
Some times you may hear after years one world famous badminton player saying "I began to play Badminton after hearing a speech by a senior student named Manduki."

Awesome. Manduki has contributed to the glory of badminton, liberating more souls from badmintonunalethiaitis. For GLORY! JK. But yeah, good job, with awesome score and getting more people interested.

At my school, of the roughly 50-70 ppl that play every year, only about 20 are truly interested: Everyone else just wants PE credit and thinks that badminton is an easy sport. Still working on breaking that image, as we were winless for 11 years straight, and only won 5 (out of 24) games in the past two years. Hope you have better luck, Manduki!

sounds a lot like my school T.T

Joonu- I would die of happiness if that ever happened ^_^

Awesome. Manduki has contributed to the glory of badminton, liberating more souls from badmintonunalethiaitis.

Gosh, looks like someone has a broad classical education, or a specialist philosophical one :eek:

....or perhaps you've just been reading Pullman ;)

(....and it's "aletheia".)

Gosh, looks like someone has a broad classical education, or a specialist philosophical one :eek:

....or perhaps you've just been reading Pullman ;)

(....and it's "aletheia".)
Lol. :DNo, not really much of an education, but yes, it was Pullman, the aletheiameter? I haven't read it for years now, but I distinctly remember that word, caught my eye when they explained it in the second book. You've read "The Subtle Knife" too? Yes, I didn't spell it right, due to the long period of time that I haven't read the book. DArn, caught.:eek:

Lol. :DNo, not really much of an education, but yes, it was Pullman, the aletheiameter? I haven't read it for years now, but I distinctly remember that word, caught my eye when they explained it in the second book. You've read "The Subtle Knife" too? Yes, I didn't spell it right, due to the long period of time that I haven't read the book. DArn, caught.:eek:

Yes, I've read the trilogy. Excellent stories (especially #1, which is the tightest), although the comparison with Lord of the Rings is, as ever, unjustified.

Actually, I think Pullman spells it "alethiometer" (I guess aletheiaometer is rather a mouthfull).

Yes, I've read the trilogy. Excellent stories (especially #1, which is the tightest), although the comparison with Lord of the Rings is, as ever, unjustified.

Actually, I think Pullman spells it "alethiometer" (I guess aletheiaometer is rather a mouthfull).

Really? I dunno why, but I like the 3rd the best, although I love the Bear fighting in the first (was it the first?). I never compared it to LOTR, much too different.

Eh, I forget. But I love that thing, wish I had one and could use it, tho it'd take forever to learn.

oh no... Could you guys be talking about the golden compass, subtle knife and the other book that i forgot the title to?

I never really got into it. :(

Don't read! Go play badminton!

oh no... Could you guys be talking about the golden compass, subtle knife and the other book that i forgot the title to?

I never really got into it. :(

Don't read! Go play badminton!

Yes, we are. Third book is The Amber Spyglass, if my memory serves me correctly. Sorry you aren't interestd. Don't read? How do you expect us to be intellectuals otherwise? Reading=+experience & +intelligence=more intellectual=improved thinking=improved reflexes & planning=improvement in badminton tactics. So, indirectly, through the transitive property of equality, reading=better badminton tactics!:D