Volleyball is my passion, writing drama is what I do, making movies is hopefully what I will do….but my actual academic field is linguistics. It's with a specialty in Spanish, but I've got English pretty well cornered, too, or so I like to think.
There's an age-old push/pull among linguists, between the prescriptivists on one side and the descriptivists on the other. Perhaps those terms are enough to tell you what they mean, but perhaps you're not a giant nerd like me, so I'll go ahead and explain them. Prescriptivism is the act of setting out rules of a sort that you believe a language should follow, whether formally or informally, whether you have any oomph behind those rules or not. You see what should be.
Descriptivists simply see what is. They're not about to set out any rules, maaaannnnn. They see things like "alright" and "is comprised of" and shrug their shoulders and say "Hey, languages are living things." That really cheeses me off when people say that. Particularly because it's absolutely true.
If you haven't already figured it out, I'm much more of a prescriptivist. "All right" and "a lot" are both two words, dammit (somewhere a stricter prescriptivist would get on me for that rather than "damn it"). Things comprise other things or are themselves composed of them, never vice versa (for example, a music album is composed of a certain number of songs, which in turn comprise the album).
Seven centuries ago, the word "girl" meant a child of either biological sex, a pretty stark example of who win this battle in the longrun. Which has led to much gnashing of teeth and swearing on my part as it relates to the terminology of our fine sport.
Do you know what a 6-2 offence is? Do you? Much like the proper pronunciation of the word "libero" (LEE-buh-roh), I'm not sure most people do anymore.
There's plenty of possible offensive formations in volleyball, denoted by numbers such as 6-2. It's number of possible hitters, then number of possible setters. Lately, any offence that uses two setters has taken to being called a 6-2. That's not what it originally meant. 6-2 originally meant just what I described — 6 hitters, 2 setters. The most common offence is a 5-1, with 5 hitters and 1 setter. It's basically any one-setter offence. Then there's a 4-2, where you have only 4 hitters and 2 setters. You don't see 4-2 much outside the youth and junior levels.
But back to 6-2. You know who run a 6-2? Yale. Take a look at their seasonal stat sheet. Setters Kendall Polan and Kelly Johnson have both played every set of every match this season (I'll be surprised if that trend doesn't continue to the end of the season), and as of this writing have between them a solid 11.5 assists per set. But they also have 3.3 kills per set between them. They each act as a setter and as a hitter — that's what 6-2 means. In a true 6-2, a setter always comes from the back row, meaning the three players in the front row are always hitters, including the one who sets when she's back-row.
The foremost example of "not a 6-2" that I can think of is Washington. Have a gander at their stat sheet. Katy Beals and Jennifer Nogueras are also a formidable setting tandem, reaching nearly 12 assists per set, but they've got just one attack attempt between them (belonging to Nogueras). USC are another easy example — neither Hayley Crone nor Alice Pizzasegola are used as hitters.
These systems are actually kind of difficult to classify. I see why they get referred to as 6-2, because all six rotations will feature hitters (when Beals or Nogueras, or Crone or Pizzasegola, become front-row, they get subbed out for a hitter). But that's not what 6-2 means. At least to this prescriptivist. Goodness knows there are plenty of people who disagree with me.
I'm not sure if these are examples of 5-2 (I'm…not especially sure what a 5-2 is), or just a plain old 5-1 where the setter is always back-row (and isn't always the same person). One thing seems clear — this formation would not be possible under a six subs per set rulebook. That shows another quirk — 6-2, 5-2, 5-1, 4-2, whatever, they all refer to the players on the court at the time. Even if one is the libero, since she'll be replaced before she becomes front-row. But in almost every system you hear get called a 6-2, the setters are not on the floor simultaneously (contrast with Yale, where they are).
A real 6-2 has big advantages, namely that it's just about impossible to be out of system with two true setters on the floor together. The 5½-1, or whatever it is, doesn't have that upside. So know a true 6-2 when you see it, because it's a lot more exciting than simply subbing your setters in and out in the front row.
I wonder what it'll be called further down the road.
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