Cheering
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Cheering is the uttering or making of sounds encouraging, stimulating or exciting to action, indicating approval or acclaiming or welcoming persons, announcements of events and the like. Applause is a special case using the hands only.
The word cheer meant originally face, countenance, expression, and came through the Old Fr. into Mid. Eng. in the 13th century from the Low Lat. cara, head; this is generally referred to the Gr. καρα;. Cara is used by the 6th-century poet Flavius Cresconius Corippus, Postquam venere verendam Caesilris ante caram (In Laud em Justini Minoris). Cheer was at first qualified with epithets, both of joy and gladness and of sorrow; compare She thanked Dyomede for ale ... his gode chere (Chaucer, Troylus) with If they sing ... tis with so dull a cheere (Shakespeare, Sonnets, xcvii.). An early transference in meaning was to hospitality or entertainment, and hence to food and drink, good cheer. The sense of a shout of encouragement or applause is a late use. Defoe (Captain Singleton) speaks of it as a sailor's word, and the meaning does not appear in Johnson.
Of the different words or rather sounds that are used in cheering, "hurrah", though now generally looked on as the typical British form of cheer, is found in various forms in German, Scandinavian, Russian (ura), French (houra). It is probably onomatopoeic in origin; some connect it with such words as hurry, whirl ; the meaning would then be haste, to encourage speed or onset in battle. The English hurrah was preceded by huzza, stated to be a sailors word, and generally connected with heeze, to hoist, probably being one of the cries that sailors use when hauling or hoisting. The German hoch, seen in full in Hoch lebe der Kaiser, &c., the French vive, Italian and Spanish viva, evviva, are cries rather of acclamation than encouragement. The Japanese shout banzai became familiar during the Russo-Japanese War. In reports of parliamentary and other debates the insertion of cheers at any point in a speech indicates that approval was shown. by members of the House by emphatic utterances of hear hear. Cheering may be tumultuous, or it may be conducted rhythmically by prearrangement, as in the case of the Hip-hip-hip by way of introduction to a simultaneous hurrah.
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[edit] Chants in North American sports
Rhythmical cheering has been developed to its greatest extent in America in the college yells, which may be regarded as a development of the primitive war-cry; this custom has no real analogue at English schools and universities, but the New Zealand football team in 1907 familiarized English crowds at their matches with a similar sort of war-cry adopted from the Māoris. In American schools and colleges there is usually one cheer for the institution as a whole and others for the different classes..
The oldest and simplest are those of the New England colleges. The original yells of Harvard and Yale are identical in form, being composed of rah (abbreviation of hurrah) nine times repeated, shouted in unison with the name of the university at the end. The Yale cheer is given faster than that of Harvard. Many institutions have several different yells, a favorite variation being the name of the college shouted nine times in a slow and prolonged manner. The best known of these variants is the Yale cheer, partly taken from The Frogs of Aristophanes, which runs thus:
The regular cheer of Princeton University (called "The Locomotive") is:
followed by recognizing a recipient three times, with the recipient most often being the last two numbers in a class year, such as "oh-seven, oh-seven, oh-seven!" for the class of 2007. [1]
The railroad cheer is like the foregoing, but begun very slowly and broadly, and gradually accelerated to the end, which is enunciated as fast as possible. Many cheers are formed like that of Toronto University:
V-a-r-s-i-t-y (spelled) VARSIT-Y (spelled staccato) Vhr-si-t~,
Rah, rah, rah!Another variety of yell is illustrated by that of the School of Practical Science of Toronto University:
The cheer of the United States Naval Academy is an imitation of a nautical syren.
The Royal Military College of Canada cheer is:
Response: Beer! Esses! Emma! T-D-V! Who can stop old RMC! Shrapnel, Cordite, NCT! R-M-C Hooah!
The Amherst cheer is:
Amherst! Rah! Rah!
Rah! Rah! Rah! Rah! Rah! Rah! Amherst!The Bryn Mawr cheer can only be started by seniors:
Ia ia ia Nike
Bryn Mawr, Bryn Mawr, Bryn Mawr!Besides the cheers of individual institutions there are some common to all, generally used to compliment some successful athlete or popular professor. One of the oldest examples of these personal cheers is:
...followed by a stamping on the floor in the same rhythm.
College yells are used particularly at athletic contests. In any large college there are several leaders, chosen by the students, who stand in front and call for the different songs and cheers, directing with their arms in the fashion of an orchestral conductor. This cheering and singing form one of the distinctive features of inter-collegiate and scholastic athletic contests in America.
Organised chants in North American sports are rarer then in their European counterparts, but some teams have their special routines. Common chants include "Let's go -team name-, let's go clap-clap clap-clap-clap; or in case of a single syllable nickname, "Go - team name- Go". Chants of "Bull-Shit" and "Ass-Hole" can be heard in some arenas/stadiums after calls unfriendly to the home squad. If the home team is leading a heavily favored team, or has defeated that team, the home fans will often mock the favored team with repeated choruses of "O-ver-ra-ted! clap-clap clap-clap-clap."
Most teams have a scoring song played on the PA system, and some professional American football teams sing a fight song after scores. The use of fight songs after a score is universal in college football. Since scoring in basketball is more frequent, and does not generally cause breaks in the game action, scoring songs are not employed in that sport. However, in college basketball, fight songs are universally played during prolonged breaks in game action (timeouts, halftime, and overtime breaks if any). Baseball fans traditionally sing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" in the middle of the 7th inning. After 9/11, many professional teams chose to use "God Bless America" during that break, either supplementing or replacing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game".
In High School Basketball games, if the score was a blow-out and approaching the end of regulation, fans of the winning team would chant "This Game's Over" or "This One's Over." If the losing team makes a play, and that teams fans chant for that, fans of the winning team will start chanting "Scoreboard," indicating that even after the one play, the other team is losing.
Some routines for specific teams include:
- Edmonton Oilers fans are known for taking over from the singer of the national anthems during O Canada.
- Denver Broncos fans shout "IN-COM-PLETE" after opponent's incomplete passes.
- Montreal Canadiens fans shout "Olé, Olé Olé Olé, Olé, Olé!" like many European football teams.
- New York Mets fans shout "José, José José José, José, José!" to the tune of the Olé chant, in honor of shortstop Jose Reyes.
- Harvard University fans often shout "Safety school!" at their Ivy League opponents. The chant is not used against non-league opponents.
- University of Kansas basketball fans often repeatedly shout their traditional yell "Rock, Chalk, Jayhawk, K-U" during home and away wins.
- Kansas State University football crowds join in on the final words when the press box announcer reports that the result of a play is "a Kansas State first down" or "a Kansas State touchdown," a practice that taken from the Kansas City Chiefs. KSU is also known for having to make cheat sheets for thier bandwagon basketball fans.
- University of Maryland basketball fans shout "Hey, You Suck" and 'We're gonna beat the hell out of you and you and you and you!' during the playing of "Rock and Roll (Part 2)" by Gary Glitter, aka "The 'Hey' song" after the starting lineups are announced and before the game starts. This is punctuated by the crowd pointing at the opposing bench in a thrusting motion at each mention of the word 'you'. This practice started in the mid-90's and is currently imitated by several fan bases. In 2004, the University banned the marching band from playing "Rock and Roll", so the students now start the chant themselves before games.
- Kansas City Chiefs When the The Star-Spangled Banner is performed prior to the coin toss, most of the crowd, rather than singing the final word in the phrase "home of the brave", shout out 'Chiefs'. At games of the Cornell University Big Red, fans yell "red" during "the rockets' red glare." Conversely, at the University of California, Berkeley the fans will change the words "the rockets' red glare" to "the rockets' BLUE glare" because their archrival Stanford wears red.
- After a football win by West Virginia University, the players, backed by the school's marching band, lead the crowd in the state's de facto anthem, "Take Me Home, Country Roads".
- Penn State fans chant "We Are", where the rest of the stadium responds "Penn State". This chant is used in different variations by several other colleges, including Marshall's "We Are...Marshall", which is also the title of a movie that was released in December 2006 about the 1970 Marshall Football Team.
- At Pittsburgh Steelers games, a brief repeated chant of "Here we go, Steelers, here we go!" is common. The same chant is often recited as fans exit any Pittsburgh sporting event and is often heard at concerts of the Pittsburgh-based band The Clarks.
- The University of Texas is known for their "Texas! Fight!" chant; the two major sides of the football stadium taking one of the words while the other responds. It is accompanied by the Hook 'Em hand signal---and it is quite impressive with the 90,000+ attendance at most Longhorn games.
- University of Pittsburgh students have taken to replacing the normal words to the school fight song (Go Pitt Go!) with 'Penn State Sucks', regardless of who the actual opponent is at the time.
- New York Islanders fans scream "The Ran-gers Suck!" after the Chicken Dance is played.
- New York Jets fans will work themselves into a frenzy led by longtime fan "Fireman Ed", perched on the shoulders of his brother. After Ed quiets the crowd to a hush, he leads them to shout- J! E! T! S! JETS! JETS! JETS!
- Schools in the SEC are known to chant "Go! Fight! Win! Kick Ass!" after a kickoff.
- At University Of South Carolina sporting events, half of the crowd will shout "Game" which prompts the rest of the crowd to shout "Cocks". This cheer is often considered particularly interesting to those who have not been exposed to the schools use of the name Cocks, as the word is often used in a profane manner.
In Mexico, three major chants are well known: the Siquitibum or Chiquitibum, used to cheer Mexican athletes or teams at whichever competition they appear; the Goya, representative of all the teams of UNAM, but arguably created by the supporters of the university's American Football team; and the Welum or Güelum, the chant sung by UNAM's traditional rival IPN, and which has become popular and common institute-wide in a similar fashion.
The oldest football massed cheer recorded at football games in the United States was called "The Rocket" in the 1880s (earlier?). The crowd cried in unison: "Ssssss... boom! ah!" which was eventually converted to "Sis Boom Bah! Rah rah rah!" memorialized by The Beach Boys' "Be true to Your School" (1963):
[edit] Rugby union
Chants are less extensive in rugby union but the Oggy Oggy Oggy chant first became popular on the terraces at Welsh rugby union matches. England supporters sing "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot", a song long popular in rugby union clubs since the words lend themselves readily to a sequence of lewd hand gestures. The Welsh sing "Cwm Rhondda", which is the tune of the hymn "Guide Me O Thou Great Redeemer", as well as the chorus of Max Boyce's "Hymns and Arias". The Fields of Athenry is often sung at matches by supporters of the Irish rugby union team. The New Zealand team (the All Blacks) are known for engaging in a ritual Māori haka before international matches. The Fiji team performs the cibi; the Samoa team the siva tau; and the Tonga team the sipa tau. The Pacific Islanders rugby union team, a joint Fiji/Samoa/Tonga representative team that played for the first time in 2004, uses a specially composed chant combining elements of each nation's traditional chant.
The Australian Rugby Union has made a concerted effort to promote the singing of Waltzing Matilda since 1999, frequently featuring singer John Williamson at home matches to lead the crowd. As singing is not a part of Australian sporting culture, this "tradition" may well fade without active support from administration.
[edit] Cricket
Chants are also used in Cricket, the Barmy Army has a collection of songs and chants such as 'You all live in a convict colony' sung to the tune of 'Yellow Submarine'. It is done to remind Australian cricket fans of their supposed criminal past. The hymn Jerusalem became the song of choice for the England cricket team during the 2005 Ashes series, and Michael Vaughan encouraged the whole country to sing the song before the last Test Match at The Oval
[edit] References
- This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
