Talk:Rook (chess)

Among serious chess players, "castle" is not the correct term for the rook. To say otherwise is misleading, to say the least. We should not sacrifice accuracy at the cost of accomodating every possible usage. We want this to be an _accurate_ article on the rook...the 2 rule books given are the standard arbiters for correctness. What am I missing here? Political correctness?? Revolver 00:38, 5 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Any decent dictionary includes synonymous definitions of "castle" and "rook". "Serious chess players" are not the only chess players, and the use of "castle", while it may be deprecated amongst "serious" chess players, is not an error. - Nunh-huh 02:36, 5 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Any "decent" dictionary includes fallacious and incorrect definitions of mathematical terms and other specialised terms. General dictionaries are full of crap. Think what you want. Whatever. Revolver 03:31, 5 Jun 2004 (UTC)

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The issue is, "which is the most authoritative source?" When you want to know what the precise terminology of something is in mathematics, do you give more credence to a math textbook, or to the American Heritage dictionary? When you want to know the meaning of a word in biochemistry or physics, do you take the word of Webster's over a college textbook? Even if lots of people like to use the dictionary definition? Does the fact that the word "castle" is NEVER used in chess ANYWHERE to refer to a rook have any bearing on this? Or is this because chess is "just a game", not an academic subject? If there was universal agreement and usage in chemistry or mathematics on a term, I doubt anyone would argue that an "alternative" term was acceptable, just because "some people use it" or "it's in a dictionary". Revolver 03:50, 5 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I added the entry to read "[the term castle is not used] among chess players", I believe, (despite the opinion of various dictionaries and the "popular" usage of people who have little personal experience with the game), that this is truly an accurate and verifiable fact. This use of terminology is not just held by "serious" players, it is also held by casual users and amateurs. 128.111.88.244 06:33, 5 Jun 2004 (UTC)

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Is the idea that rook refers to an elephant accurate? I have seen it in many places, but Britannica says that bishops were originally elephants, and rooks originally chariots. Some searching does very little to clear up the confusion, providing Arabic and Hindi words for both. Is there anyone better informed who can clear this up, or at least summarize the controversy? Josh

What is says in the article now is, as far as I know, accurate: the bishop replaced the fil (which derives from the Persian for "elephant"); the rook takes its name from the Persian rukh (or however you want to transliterate it), "chariot". There's no controversy about it to the best of my knowledge. --Camembert 13:37, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

this idea is in the war elephant article, it says "The rook is thought to be originally a tower on an elephant. The bishop was also originally an elephant." I was wondering if it may just be there definition is not 100% certain.say1988 22:29, Apr 16, 2005 (UTC)

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The below comment moved from my user page:

Hi. re. my edit of the Rook (chess) article that gave 'Castle' as an alternative word for the rook. I advocate it to be mentioned early on in order to gel with the term 'castling' which appears very early in the article. Duncan.france 03:43, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I don't have any problem with the name "castle" being further up the article than it currently is; maybe the current explanation of it could be moved up to where castling is first mentioned (or the mention of castling moved down to the explanation of the name "castle"). I do feel, however, that to start the article with a sentence like "The rook, also called the castle..." is to suggest the terms are equivalent in every way, which isn't really the case. I mean, I don't want to rehash the argument above or to come across as some awful snob, but the noun "castle" is simply not used in modern chess literature in English, and I think we should be careful to avoid giving the impression that it is. --Camembert

It really sounds like folk etymology to me. In the 10th century Arabic chess (shatranj) literature, the bishops are elephants, and the elephant are bishops. There are various theories as to how we got the names we got in the various European languages, but there is little room for argument as to the names we started with. Shimmin 00:02, Apr 17, 2005 (UTC)