Why do we describe as round robin a tournament in which everyone
plays everyone else? (answer below)
When Soviet Communist Party
leader Nikita Khrushchev spoke to the Party elite about the terrible
crimes of his predecessor, Joseph Stalin, someone called out: "Where
were you?" Khrushchev looked up from his speech, demanding, "Who
said that?" There was silence. "That's where I was," said
Khrushchev.
Similarly, on British warships centuries ago, complaining to the captain
might get you hanged as mutineer if your name was at the top of a
petition. The solution: arrange the signatures in a circle so nobody could
be singled out. This was called "round robin," for the circle
and the ribbon (modified in the expression to robin) that tied the
document.
When diagrammed, a tournament with everyone playing everyone else, as
opposed to an elimination tournament, looks like that circle of
signatures. And you thought round robin was a portly bird that had
overindulged on worms.
Source: A BROWSER'S DICTIONARY by John Ciardi
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Volleyball Officials' Section; Olde Pine Volleyball League;
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