What is the word for it?

[Jamie123]

Is there a word for something that everyone assumes they need, but which actually serves no useful purpose?

For example bowling shoes. I have never understood the point of bowling shoes. You go to the bowling alley, but before they let you bung the ball at the pins, they make you change YOUR shoes for THEIR shoes. I could understand it if you're a woman and your shoes are like this:

But if your shoes are like this...

is changing them for these...

really going to make the slightest difference? Is it really impossible to yack a ball without them?

And it's not like there's anything special about the shoes anyway. I suppose they're non-slip, but have you ever slipped yacking a bowling ball while NOT wearing special shoes? Well no....because if you try, you'll get 100 angry bowling alley employees shouting in your face that you need to change your shoes, so rather than get into 100 vs. 1 unarmed combat you acquiesce and put on your newly-sprayed bowling alley shoes like the "good little boy" that you are.

Even wearing the shoes, I've never been able to get the ball anywhere near the pins without having it go into either of those dratted gutter-things along the sides. So I say away with bowling shoes!

P.S. Perhaps someone can be Mr. Chesterton and explain to me why I'm wrong.  

Edited March 25, 2021 by Jamie123

[Carborendum]

14 minutes ago, Jamie123 said:

Is there a word for something that everyone assumes they need, but which actually serves no useful purpose?

Yes, "a waste".

14 minutes ago, Jamie123 said:

For example bowling shoes. I have never understood the point of bowling. You go to the bowling alley, but before they let you bung the ball at the pins, they make you change YOUR shoes for THEIR shoes. I could understand it if you're a woman and your shoes are like this:

...

really going to make the slightest difference? Is it really impossible to yack a ball without them?

Bowling shoes are specifically for two purposes.

1) To keep your shoes from scuffing or otherwise marking the highly polished wooden floor.

• Regular sneakers can track in sand and dirt or worse.  This will tend to scuff the polish on the wooden floor prematurely.  They just don't want to have to clean up any more than they have to.
• Sneakers also have the potential to leave skid marks... no, not THAT kind of skid mark.  But some shoes will actually deposit some of the rubber onto the floor.  I've seen it.  And it takes effort to remove from a polished floor.

2) They offer another revenue stream for the bowling alley.

[Vort]

Bowling alleys have been popular in the US since at least the 1930s, and became a big deal 1950s and '60s, after the automatic pinsetter started being widely used. They reached their zenith of popularity in the 1970s, which was when I learned to bowl. (Not well; my best score was in the low 200s, which I think I achieved twice or three times in my life.) By the time I got off my mission in 1984, bowling alleys were a bit passé, and were in decline by the '90s. There are still plenty of bowling alleys in the US, but the industry is not nearly what it was in the 20th century.

As for the shoes: I can only suppose that in the '50s through the '70s, when bowling popularity soared, bowling alley proprietors were concerned about the condition of the finish on their expensive wooden floors, and so controlled the shoes allowed on those surfaces. It was the same when I played basketball in high school; we were required to buy dedicated basketball shoes, which were never worn off-court (except going to and from locker rooms) and which often cost $50-$100 dollars (1970s and 1980s dollars), which was quite a bit more than I and many of my less well-off schoolmates could easily afford. Renting "court shoes" for a buck a game, perhaps even a buck a practice, would have been cheap in comparison.

Why continue the tradition today? Perhaps because it's an expected thing at this point, and it does control how the bowling alley surfaces are used. Maybe renting old, ratty shoes to patrons constitutes a revenue stream for the bowling alley. Or maybe it's too much trouble to tell people, "You can wear this type of shoe, or this type, or this type, but you can't wear that or that or that."

[Carborendum]

3 minutes ago, Vort said:

Bowling alleys have been popular in the US since at least the 1930s, and became a big deal 1950s and '60s, after the automatic pinsetter started being widely used. They reached their zenith of popularity in the 1970s, which was when I learned to bowl. (Not well; my best score was in the low 200s, which I think I achieved twice or three times in my life.)

You got me beat.  I have only broken 200 once in my life.  I'm usually in the mid 100s.

My grandfather (after whom I was named) said he once bowled a 299 with the last pin just teetering, but didn't quite fall.  From another event, he maintained a trophy when he bowled in a tournament and got a 298.  So, he was a pretty good bowler.

[Vort]

20 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

I'm usually in the mid 100s.

I doubt I would score that high today, so you have probably got me beat. (Which is nothing to brag about, but still.)

[MrShorty]

57 minutes ago, Jamie123 said:

And it's not like there's anything special about the shoes anyway. I suppose they're non-slip, but have you ever slipped yacking a bowling ball while NOT wearing special shoes

A part of it is actually the opposite. If you watch pro bowlers, you will notice that they slide as they approach their release. Sneakers are designed to grip the floor, but bowling shoes are designed to provide just the right amount of slide as the bowler goes to release the ball. https://www.bowling.com/bowling-blog/coachs-corner/how-sliding-plays-a-factor-in-bowling/

Of course, most of us rank amateurs are just lucky to keep the ball out of the gutter. Whether our approach is a slide, hop, Fred Flintstone twinkle toes, or two hand between the legs, we are just happy to hit a few pins every third throw.

[mordorbund]

2 hours ago, MrShorty said:

we are just happy to hit a few pins every third throw.

Baseball has really set a low athletic bar for Americans, hasn't it.

[Traveler]

7 hours ago, Carborendum said:

You got me beat.  I have only broken 200 once in my life.  I'm usually in the mid 100s.

My grandfather (after whom I was named) said he once bowled a 299 with the last pin just teetering, but didn't quite fall.  From another event, he maintained a trophy when he bowled in a tournament and got a 298.  So, he was a pretty good bowler.

My problem is quite different than you and @Vort  -- I get really fantastic bowling scores golfing and super great golfing scores bowling. 

 

The Traveler

[Carborendum]

I have a question about another word.  What's the word for it?

• You get into a discussion about Topic A. 
• Someone purposefully steers the topic that is tangentially related to Topic A.  It is fairly minor, so we will call this subject Mouse A.
• But along with Mouse A he purposefully introduces it in the context of an Elephant B, which is in no way related to Topic A, and only circumstantially relates to Mouse A.
• He does this to draw reactions from the crowd who will naturally go off and talk about Elephant B.
• Then he sits back in his easy chair and grins the sardonic grin.

What do you call this?

Edited March 25, 2021 by Carborendum

[estradling75]

1 hour ago, Carborendum said:

I have a question about another word.  What's the word for it?

• You get into a discussion about Topic A. 
• Someone purposefully steers the topic that is tangentially related to Topic A.  It is fairly minor, so we will call this subject Mouse A.
• But along with Mouse A he purposefully introduces it in the context of an Elephant B, which is in no way related to Topic A, and only circumstantially relates to Mouse A.
• He does this to draw reactions from the crowd who will naturally go off and talk about Elephant B.
• Then he sits back in his easy chair and grins the sardonic grin.

What do you call this?

In forums its called ThreadJacking 

[Carborendum]

55 minutes ago, estradling75 said:

In forums its called ThreadJacking 

No, threadjacking is when you pay attention to the mouse that the original thread brought up.  Then you proceed to make a mountain out of a molehill.

I'm talking about bringing up a mountain and pointing to the molehill and acting all innocent that people are going off about the mountain.

[Vort]

Trolling.

[Traveler]

16 hours ago, Carborendum said:

I have a question about another word.  What's the word for it?

• You get into a discussion about Topic A. 
• Someone purposefully steers the topic that is tangentially related to Topic A.  It is fairly minor, so we will call this subject Mouse A.
• But along with Mouse A he purposefully introduces it in the context of an Elephant B, which is in no way related to Topic A, and only circumstantially relates to Mouse A.
• He does this to draw reactions from the crowd who will naturally go off and talk about Elephant B.
• Then he sits back in his easy chair and grins the sardonic grin.

What do you call this?

A type and shadow for real life experiences.

 

The Traveler

[Jamie123]

On 3/25/2021 at 11:48 PM, estradling75 said:

In forums its called ThreadJacking 

They've finally got that boat moving again:

 

[Carborendum]

5 hours ago, Jamie123 said:

They've finally got that boat moving again:

Now what on earth does that have to do with...

On 3/25/2021 at 6:48 PM, estradling75 said:

In forums its called ThreadJacking 

Oh...