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Comment by notimetorelax | Hacker News Reader

I’m a foreigner - what does “a diversion of the filed” mean?

I think it's "diversion" in the (unusual) sense of "an enjoyable activity", and "field" in the sense of "an open outdoor area with grass or crops". Which is a kid of ... poetic? ... definition of a "sport" (e.g. football, a leisure activity you do on a grassy square).

I don't think that's an unusual sense of "diversion" 150 years ago. It's the main sense of the cognate in Spanish or French.

A diversion is an activity done for fun or enjoyment, rather than for money or similar. A sports field is the area in which the sport is carried out, and has the connotation of “outside” from its other meaning as a meadow.

A definition of “sport” as “an activity undertaken for enjoyment, in a specific environment, commonly outside” is pretty decent in my view.

A diversion - something that is separate from the main activity, something done for amusement's sake.

The field - outdoors, countryside, perhaps an actual field, though not necessarily.

I think in this context "the field" means in the sense similar to "the field of study", i.e. the encompassing boundaries of an endeavour. So in this case long distance canoeing is an off the beaten track distraction from the sport of canoeing (or in the contrapositive, an off the beaten track distraction from long distance travel). The phrase is enticing because it could be interpreted either way; and still have largely the same meaning.

I was thinking in the context of "field sports", such as hunting shooting etc.

As you say though, both are plausible, and that ambiguity is part of what makes the phrase so interesting.

In this sense any diversion would have a "field" so saying "diversion of the field" would be redundant. As a definition of sport, it is much more likely that "field" means the outdoors (there probably were not many indoor sports at that time).

However, this shows why this dictionary is not actually good for modern, practical use, IMO.

"Field" can mean those participating in an event, says the runners in a race -- "he outpaced the field"

I'm a native English speaker. I looked at that sentence for a solid minute and couldn't figure it out.

I think substituting the term with "fieldsport" would lose nothing.

It made instant sense to me, I read it as something you wouldn't usually do in a field of study, unexpected.

*field

Something like "Something you do to to pass time/have fun, played on a field."

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