By Any Name, It’s the Tool of the Trade

It’s a light bat for tennis with a network of catgut, silk, or nylon in an oval frame attached to a handle, according to Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language.

But how do you spell it? R-a-c-k-e-t or r-a-c-q-u-e-t?

The two orthographies have been volleyed back and forth since the sport was invented and there have been many variations to this day.

Webster’s defines the word only under the ‘k’ spelling, but the dictionary also says “same as racket” under the racquet listing.

Although no one is getting involved in head-to-head competition over the matter, some tennis enthusiasts have a preference.

“I’ve just always known r-a-c-q-u-e-t is how you spell it,” Alexander McNab, Editor of “Tennis” magazine, said emphatically.

McNab, 37, has been playing tennis since he was 10 years old and said he has always spelled the word that way.

And so has his magazine.

The cover of Tennis magazine’s premiere issue, published May, 1965, read, “Tennis -- The Magazine of the Racquet Sports.”

But even in 1965, when the instrument was still generally composed of wood and Roy Emerson and Margaret Smith won Wimbledon, the reader had to look no further than the third page of that issue to see the other spelling.

A Bancroft advertisement urged tennis buffs to “Play with America’s New No. 1 Tennis Racket.”

The editors at Tennis have no control over how their advertisers spell the word.

McNab said the magazine follows The New York Times’ style. The company has owned the magazine since the early 1970s.

The piece of equipment itself has undergone many structural and cosmetic changes over the last 20 years, first with the move from a wood to aluminum body and later to fiberglass and graphite constructions.

While those innovations have affected the dynamics of the game, the impact of the often-used ‘qu’ version is more subtle, but it exists, according to John Singler, an assistant professor of linguistics at New York University.

“If you look at who the tennis pros are, considering their backgrounds and all, you see this spelling is just reinforcing the snob appeal,” Singler said, referring to the ‘qu’ version.

“Any time you bring in something that’s French it’s brought in for snob appeal.”

The French spelling is racquette.

Singler explains that language doesn’t decide that one spelling of a word is more prestigious than another; the writers and speakers of the language make that distinction.

The notion that there is only one way to spell a word is relatively recent, according to Singler, arriving with the 18th Century ascendancy of the grammarians in England.

Singler has his own preference. “A racket’s a racket and it’s a ck,” he said.

The Oxford English dictionary lists the following among its historic spellings and usages for the word:

--1624 - Captain John Smith, writing about Virginia: “The beaver, his tail somewhat like the form of a racket...”

--1828 - Benjamin Disraeli, former British prime minister: “In the tennis court he toiled with the racquet.”

--1897 - Outing, a U.S. magazine: “When the racquette is fastened the heel and toe are free.”

The spelling difference has nothing to do with “snob appeal,” McNab said, but rather “it’s a matter of being correct versus being incorrect. I think we’re right and other people are wrong.”

The linguist Singler supports his “snob appeal” explanation with an example.

The spelling of the word for a loud disturbance or the slang word for an easy, profitable business or profession would never become r-a-c-q-u-e-t because those usages don’t have any elitist associations, Singler said.

The advertising world, though, has not overlooked even that possibility.

A magazine ad for Clairol, featuring a woman with long flowing hair holding the object in question against her face as if it were a veil, reads, “Beautiful hair is our racquet.”

The spelling in The Associated Press style and word usage manual is r-a-c-k-e-t.

But who cares anyway? asks W. Timothy Gallwey, author of “The Inner Game of Tennis,” a 1974 tennis instruction book that uses the ‘k’ form.

Gallwey said he has never thought about the issue and said he thinks he probably spells it both ways.

“It’s a decadent society that considers such issues,” he said.