Chess terminology

[Michael Flatt]

Metaphors are an integral part of the English language.

Their use is to add colour and interest to what might otherwise be a drab, uninspiring and unimaginative piece of writing.

Mixed metaphors are frowned upon. Sometimes metaphors fail through over-egging the pudding.

A cricket enthusiast would steer clear of baseball terms.

[Barry Sandercock]

Soheil, give us some questions we can get our teeth into.

[Stewart Reuben]

I am not sure why this topic has suddenly been reopened.

You will find the term 'perpetual check' cannot be found in the Laws of Chess. That is because, although easy to define, it sometimes requires considerable analysis to demonstrate. There are some perpetual checks that take much longer than 3 moves to reach repetition. Doing one in my head, it took about 22 moves before 3 fold occurrence of position could be claimed starting with 1 Re7+. White Rh7, Kh2. Black Ke8, Ph2, Rd2, Bd6.

'3-fold repetition' is incorrect. That would require a position to occur 4 times, the last 3 being repetition. It is 3-fold occurrence of position.

It is common parlance to state, 'King + Bishop + Rook's pawn of the wrong colour is a draw.' I have never heard, or seen it expressed as, 'King + Bishop + a or h pawn of the wrong colour is a draw.'

We often refer to a player having 'a queenside majority'. That means a majority of pawns on the queenside. On TV Ray Keene used to refer to it as 'the left hand side of the board' as it indeed is - from White's viewpoint and looking at the diagram on the TV. In a game it is the rhs from the viewpoint of Black.

We often refer to 'a player being a piece up'. Usually that means a bishop or knight, certainly not a pawn.

Being the 'exchange up' means having rook for bishop or knight. Leonard Barden never uses the term as he thinks his newspaper readers will not necessarily understand it.

My spellchecker refers to UK English, US English, Australian English and so on.

I have spent time this year explaining the difference to FIDE people between 'intervene' and 'interfere'. A good arbiter never interferes.

I dislike the term 'classical' chess rather than 'standardplay'. The former implies superior. But should it be standardplay, standard play or standard-play? By analogy with quickplay, it should be the first of these three.

English is a minefield of these small, fine points.

[soheil_hooshdaran]

Metaphors are an integral part of the English language.

Their use is to add colour and interest to what might otherwise be a drab, uninspiring and unimaginative piece of writing.

Mixed metaphors are frowned upon. Sometimes metaphors fail through over-egging the pudding.

A cricket enthusiast would steer clear of baseball terms.

I am not arguing that it doesn't add zest to the sentence; but probably it has to emphasize anotgher thing as just 'without protection'.
As a newbie, I would be puzzled to hear 'this position is without protection', saying 'What causes it to bee termed such'?

Could I clarify myself?

[Barry Sandercock]

This position is without protection, probably means there are insufficient pieces in the position to defend the king from attack.

[soheil_hooshdaran]

I doubt if 'drafty' here refers to few pieces when he says:
As you can see in Diagram 111, the holes around White's King allow Black's pieces to infiltrate.
"Drafty" positions of this kind often give rise to a quick and violent checkmate.

Just 1 knight and 2 pawn are gone from each side and it is yet the middlegame.

[Barry Sandercock]

It means the king is in danger, regardless of how many pieces are involved in the attack.