Íslenskt mál og almenn málfræði - 13.07.1981, Side 238

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Páll S. Árdal
there are in the case of chess and other games all sorts of regulations
laid down for such matters as the conduct of international competitions
and the control of crowds at soccer matches. These regulations need not
necessarily be enforced when people are playing the game in question,
however universally applied they may be. They are not rules of the
game, although it is possible for a regulation to harden into a constitu-
tive rule. Thus it may become part of the game of chess that each player
must make a certain number of moves within a prescribed period, even
that each competitor is entitled to his own chair, although no one would
have dreamt of this possibility prior to the antics of Bobby Fischer when
he was playing for the world championship in Iceland.
(5) Many games, such as soccer and hockey, have rules to which
penalties are attached. Thus when in soccer a player handles the ball or
is off side when the ball is kicked to him by a member of his own side,
the opposite team gets a free kick. The offences mentioned have nothing
to do with doing things that outside the game would be wrong. These
offences are more analogous to purely legal offences in society than to
moral offences. But it is also the case that a player is not allowed to trip
an opponent and kick him without “giving away” a free kick, and these
are actions that we generally speaking consider to be morally wrong
outside the game, although only within the game do they constitute a
“foul”.
(6) Games are played within a moral context and it is presupposed that
a man is not absolved from general moral and even legal censure while
he is playing a game. It is true that in such games as hockey, at least as
the game is played in Canada, it is expected that fights may break out,
and they are on the whole considered as only jouls, and penalties are
applied only within the game. But, in some exceptional circumstances,
charges for assault may be preferred, and this has happened on more
than one occasion in Canada. Similarly when a player gets a reputation
for being ‘dirty’ this is not just a commentary on him as a player: it also
tends to be taken as general criticism of his character. One may mention
the fact that newspapers often have special features to show that such
players are jolly decent chaps in private life, and that they are gentle
and mild-mannered, wonderful fathers or lovers or husbands, or all of
these. The general character of ‘dirty’ players is taken to need vindi-
cation.