Table tennis bat? Table tennis racket?

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optimistic pessimist

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Dear all,

Do you call a table tennis bat a "racket"?
I think typial rackets have strings. However, when I googled the image of "table tennis rackets" I found so many hits.

Thank you!

OP
 

Heterological

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In regular tennis, the instrument is called a "racket;" in table tennis (usually referred to by the trademarked name "Ping Pong," in the U.S. at least) the instrument is called a "paddle."
 

Rover_KE

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In BE it's called a bat.


Rover
 

BobK

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In BE it's called a bat.


Rover

In regular tennis, the instrument is called a "racket;" in table tennis (usually referred to by the trademarked name "Ping Pong," in the U.S. at least) the instrument is called a "paddle."

This difference is compounded by the fact that the whole game (in Am Eng:?:, maybe just in the strange international dialect I met at a summer school...) is called 'paddle'.

b
 

Barb_D

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Hi Bob,
We call it ping-pong most often, but table tennis is common. For sure, we play it with a paddle. (I would think it was funny if someone called it a racquet; now I know it's what you call it in the UK.) I've never heard the game called paddle.

For the record, badminton and tennis are played with a racquet.

Am I spelling that wrong? I'm getting red squiggly lines...
 

emsr2d2

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Hi Bob,
We call it ping-pong most often, but table tennis is common. For sure, we play it with a paddle. (I would think it was funny if someone called it a racquet; now I know it's what you call it in the UK.) I've never heard the game called paddle.

For the record, badminton and tennis are played with a racquet.

Am I spelling that wrong? I'm getting red squiggly lines...

I think you may have misread an earlier post. In the UK, it's called either a bat or a paddle (though I have never called it a paddle!), never a racquet!

We call the game table tennis, only little children generally call it ping-pong, although it's played with a "ping-pong ball".

I've certainly never heard that game called "paddle". Now that I live in Spain, I'm learning about their national game which is called "padel". It's a bizarre mix of tennis and squash. I've played it once. I was rubbish!

And no, you're spelling racquet perfectly. I think some spellcheckers have been set to mark it wrong as these days so many people seem to use the Anglicised version - racket.
 

BobK

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...
We call the game table tennis, only little children generally call it ping-pong, although it's played with a "ping-pong ball".
...

According to Boris Johnson, in his unique contribution to 'Ping-Pong Diplomacy' after the Beijing Olympics ;-), it used to be called 'Whiff-Whaff' - though I've never heard of this. (It suggests, onomatopoeically that the sound of the bats was more significant then than the sound of the ball - so it must have been a very early version, presumably based on a sort of ball that pre-dated the celluloid balls used now.)

b
 
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