Which fork?

This is a question to Christian only but I'm making it public for the common good.

When naming the winning condition in Havannah, did you mean a tablefork or a pitchfork? The name used on the Havannah page in the Polish Wikipedia depends on it. I am uncertain because in Polish game terminology, we call what a chess knight is able to do a pitchfork, and nothing has been called a tablefork yet.

I sense an interesting linguist thread forming here! For my part, not speaking Polish or Dutch but only English, I am having trouble seeing what a chess knight and a "three-edge Havannah win" :) have in common that could be related to a fork (of any kind!). Further, I will go out on a limb and say that the Havannah "fork" is neither of the two you mention, but more similar to a "fork in the road".

If that turns out the proper meaning, no problem. We have yet another word for a road fork :)

I support the 'road fork'. The names just came up in the process of invention. 'Loop' would probably have been better than 'ring' but fortunately 'bridge' is not entirely unappropriate. Linguistically the bottom line is: the names somehow stuck :) .

I agree with Christian. (Who would know better than he?) It's a road fork. Or maybe a forked tongue. Or one of those forked sticks you use to catch a snake (although in Christian's case you'd need a pretty big one). But any event, it's topologically a Y.

And I support "ring" over "loop". A loop merely returns to its beginning. A rhombus of 4 hexagonal cells might be said to form a loop. But a ring has something inside it, typically a finger, or least has room for something. Granted, a (finger) ring is circular, and Havannah rings can be quite irregular, but, hey, you can't have everything.

If it has to touch three sides, I think trident is the right kind of fork. In my home, we call four-tined forks but we've taken to calling table forks with only three tines threeks. And for cooking, we have twoks, as well.

"Bridge" has the disadvantage of also being used of two stones "connected" by having two empty hexes between them. Perhaps another word would have been better, but now I guess it has stuck, so it's too late :-) I'm amazed at how important "bridges" seem to be in Havannah.

I agree that "ring" is better than "loop". And dvd, I think "trident" would have been nice. If for no other reason than that it has no other meaning (that I know of) in such games :-)

I’m amazed at how important “bridges” seem to be in Havannah.

The bridge is the soul of havannah and the oil in the machinery ;-)

Forgot to remove the 'mad quotes' :(