Quote:
Originally Posted by zeedonk
If our interpreter says "No hands" then that's what I'll do this year, but I'll pregame it and bark about it to coaches and players as much as I can, so they know. Describing the rule seems to be like describing pornography, you know it when you see it.
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"If our interpreter says "No hands" then that's what I'll do this year". A variation would be, "When In Southern New Jersey, do what Southern New Jersey evaluators do".
Some other quotes regarding this rule:
"If a bird looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck", meaning, "if it looks like a foul, swims (?) like a foul, and quacks (?) like a foul, then it is probably a foul".
You can also cite the Elephant Test. That refers to the ability to recognize something while being unable to describe it. It may be derived from a version of the Indian tale of the Blind Men and an Elephant. The tale explains how six blind men each feel only one part of an elephant and come to argue that it is similar to a wall, a spear, a snake, a tree, a fan, and a rope, respectively: each has a completely different interpretation of what an elephant is like, and the complete description can only be derived by combining their information. In your version, you try to stay in a position where you can see through the players, to get a complete observation of the entire situation, combine that information, and make the correct call.
Regarding your pornography statement, "Close, but no cigar". It was obscenity, not pornography. The phrase, "I know it when I see it", is best known as a description of a threshold of obscenity, no longer used, which is not protected speech under the First Amendment of the United States constitution. Exhibition of obscene material may be a criminal offense. United States Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart used the phrase in his concurring opinion in Jacobellis v. Ohio 378 U.S. 184 (1964). He wrote: "I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that."
Please note that I can't take credit for the obscenity, not pornography, clarification. Another Forum member made this correction several years ago. Until his, or her, correction, I also thought it was pornography, not obscenity, that was covered in the Supreme Court decision. I can't remember who made this correction, to give them proper credit, probably one of our Forum pornography expert guys, you know, kind of like the correct spelling guy, or the correct grammar guy.