Battledore and shuttlecock, or jeu de volant, is a game ancestral to the modern sport of badminton. It is played by two or more people using small racquet (battledores), made of parchment or rows of catgut stretched across wooden frames, and , made of a base of some light material, such as cork, with trimmed feathers fixed around the top. The object is for players to bat the shuttlecock from one to the other as many times as possible without allowing it to fall to the ground.
History
Games with a shuttlecock are attested to as early as 2,000 years ago, and have been popular in
India,
China,
Japan, and
Siam.
Various traditional shuttlecock games have been played by
Indigenous peoples, including the KwakwakaŹ¼wakw, Akimel O'odham, Coast Salish, and
Zuni people; they are often played with a feathered shuttle made of
corn husk or twigs and sometimes a wooden battledore.
[Tara Prindle, "Cornhusk Shuttlecock Game". NativeTech.org.] In
Europe, battledore and shuttlecock was played by children for centuries (the OED dates the words to 1598 and 1599 respectively), and ancient drawings appearing to depict the game have been found in
Ancient Greece.
[
]
It was still being played in the College Garden, Glasgow, Scotland in August 1850,
Australia in the 1800s and early 1900s
Settled by Europeans in 1788, by 1804 in Sydney town, at the home of Sergeant Packer on Pitt Street, among foods and clothing being sold were... ', and music boxes, set to irregular airs, Battledores and shuttlecocks';
The sport was played at the Sydney's George Street Police Racket Ground in April 1850 by Sir Thomas Livingstone Mitchell and others for 1:47 hours.
Noting its origins with battledore and shuttlecocks, the new activity of badminton was introduced to the readers within the Australian colonies in 1874,
Phrase
'Battledore and shuttlecock' was used as a figure of speech to describe a rallying argument, debate, or political game.
See also
