This counts as reading wednesday, right?

[dhampyresa]

The following two questions have been nagging at me since I thought of them while reading. The book titles of the two books are irrelevant, because these questions aren't related to the point of those books. They're just questions that are bugging me.

1. The book indicates an event as happening during "the Jewish Passover". Is this common in English? The author is from the UK. This prasing mirrors the French "la Pâque juive" but I always thought French people added the adjective when necessary because the French for Easter is "Pâques".

2. Which swim stroke do you consider the most complicated? Not the most tiring or your least favourite, but the most complicated. For reference, the Olympic swimming events are: butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke and freestyle/crawl, but there are other swim strikes. My own answer will be in the comments, so as to not influence people (hopefully).

Comments

[dhampyresa]

Crawl is my favourite but it is the most complicated because: (a) it's assymetrical and (b) you have to figure out the breathing for yourself instead of relying on "is my head underwater or not".

Butterfly is the most tiring, though.

While I recognise the usefulness of breaststroke as a way to move under water, it's my least favourite to swim.

[rachelmanija]

1. I've only ever heard it referred to as "Passover." If you wanted to explain what it was, you'd say, "Passover, the Jewish holiday."

2. I think the breaststroke is the most complicated and the butterfly is the most difficult. I'm not much of a swimmer though.

[isis]

At least in the US, "Passover" is clearly the Jewish holiday, as "Easter" is the Christian one at approximately the same time.

For me, Freestyle is the most complicated. I taught myself alternate breathing for the purpose of open-water swimming for doing triathlons, and it was HARD. (But I succeeded!) Butterfly is the most tiring, breast stroke is my favorite, and backstroke is my least favorite.

[muccamukk]

"The Jewish Passover" isn't *wrong* but it does seem redundant and isn't common phrasing, at least that I've run into.

[yhlee]

Joe says butterfly.

[sovay]

"the Jewish Passover". Is this common in English?

I've encountered it, but I think of it as weird and indicating a strong Christian orientation on the part of the author: it is a Jewish holiday and should not need further qualification as such, even with the recent rise in Christian appropriation of Seders.

[nyctanthes]

Jewish Passover is like chai tea. It's useful for some, and laughably redundant for others.

I am a self taught swimmer, so breaststroke is easiest while the crawl is what I aspire to. One day! This winter I might even take lessons.

[merit]

Not Jewish... but Passover is firmly Jewish in my mind so seems redundant.

I was going to say butterfly, as I never managed to master the stroke. I found crawl to be effective, but less fun to swim - breast stroke allowed for more freedom.

[schneefink]

I have just started to figure out breaststroke, and the only other one I even attempted was crawl but then I decided to leave it for later because I could not get the timing of breathing right.

[dolorosa_12]

I find breaststroke the least demanding (i.e. it leaves me the least exhausted), but I find freestyle easier. The actual motion of backstroke is easy, but I can't swim in a straight line if I can't look ahead while swimming, so I tend to avoid it as it's difficult to prevent myself from weaving from side to side in the lane or bumping into other people. Butterfly I find the most physically demanding.

I also learnt to do sidestroke and survival backstroke — Australian swimming lessons for children are big on water safety, and we were taught that sidestroke, breastroke or survival backstroke were the best strokes to do if we needed to conserve energy and swim for a very long time. Swimming lessons in Australia also teach freestyle as the default — everything is building up to getting you to the point that you can swim a length of freestyle in a 50m pool without difficulty, and you only really learn the other strokes after you've already competently learnt freestyle. For this reason, I've always had much more practice swimming freestyle, and tend to only use that stroke when swimming laps.

I realise I haven't really answered your question. For me personally I think backstroke is the hardest, but butterfly is the most physically demanding.

[corvidology]

As you know, I'm from England and I've only ever heard it called Passover. Weird...

I find Butterly the most complicated but that might be because my body always wants to flex at the wrong point. :D

[dhampyresa]

Thank you for answering!

[dhampyresa]

OMG YOU DID TRIATHLONS?! Tell me everything!

[dhampyresa]

Thank you!

[dhampyresa]

Thank him for me!

[dhampyresa]

Thank you.

[dhampyresa]

You can do it! *\o/*

[dhampyresa]

breast stroke allowed for more freedom

Oh, interesting. Would you mind expanding on that?

[dhampyresa]

*cheers you on*

[dhampyresa]

This is very interesting, thank you! I wonder if I could learn sidestroke and survival backstroke around here...

[dhampyresa]

my body always wants to flex at the wrong point

I'm so curious what point you mean! Nothing I imagine makes sense lol

[merit]

I think because I got to spend the most time underwater - which I was always very enjoyable to me.

[isis]

Hee, what do you want to know? The basic story is that when I was a kid I swam competitively (for some aspirational value of competitive) on our town team, when I was in college my boyfriend was a bicycle racer and so I used to ride a lot (he'd go out on a workout ride and then come back and we'd go on an easy ride), and when I was in grad school triathlon was just getting popular, and I figured, I can do 2 out of 3, how hard can running be?

So I did triathlons in the late 1980s, mostly what is now called Olympic distance (1M swim, 25M bike, 10K run) but up to half Ironman. I was pretty good, not great (generally finished in the top 25% and sometimes placed in my age group) mostly because it was just starting out as a sport. I qualified for the nationals and competed one year. But when I moved to Colorado everyone was so good, my placing dropped to about 50% and I also found other things I wanted to do (like rock climbing and mountain biking) so I gave up the triathlon.

Oddly, running was my least favorite and worst sport of the three, but eventually I got really into running and mostly dropped the other two sports (I still mountain bike but I no longer have a road bike, and I swim sometimes for fun but don't do workouts any more) but have done nine marathons and one 50K. How did I become a runner? I don't know! It just happened!

[corvidology]

I just mean my arms and legs don't want to form a smooth connected motion. I end up having to concentrate so hard on it that I get exhausted. I like to 'lose' myself in exercise.

[dhampyresa]

That makes sense, thanks.

I like to 'lose' myself in exercise.
Oh, same!