# Korean baseball fight - is this a joke? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 15, 2007, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/korean-baseball-fight-is-this-a-joke/419332 "2007-09-15T19:15:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2007, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/korean-baseball-fight-is-this-a-joke/419332/21 "2007-09-17T02:04:19Z")
[QUOTE=tomndebb] “_cloche-pied_” = “hopping” [/QUOTE] Which appears to literally mean “[with] bell-foot”. Strange term for it. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2007, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/korean-baseball-fight-is-this-a-joke/419332/22 "2007-09-17T03:21:29Z")
[QUOTE=yabob] Which appears to literally mean “[with] bell-foot”. Strange term for it. [/QUOTE] True, but it is an idiom, so a direct translation is not really going to work. (Do you really get hit by a small, tree-like plant when you get really tired and say “I’m bushed.”?) I do not have a French etymological disctionary, so I do not know where the phrase originated, but it now means “hopping” without any genuine references to bells. ---
**Author:** ![Papy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b3f665/32.png) [@Papy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Papy)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2007, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/korean-baseball-fight-is-this-a-joke/419332/23 "2007-09-17T03:35:03Z")
“sauter à cloche-pied” means hopping on one foot (just like when playing hopscotch) it is indeed an idiom ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2007, 6:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/korean-baseball-fight-is-this-a-joke/419332/24 "2007-09-17T06:29:48Z")
The video link in the OP doesn’t work for me. Anyway, I’m in Korea and I can vouch that a common school yard game here is hopping on one foot and bumping into one’s opponent. It’s the local form of jousting. It’s certainly much safer than what my friends and I did for jousting when we were pre-teens: bicycles and broomsticks. ---
**Author:** ![jovan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/0ea827/32.png) [@jovan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jovan)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2007, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/korean-baseball-fight-is-this-a-joke/419332/25 "2007-09-17T06:31:22Z")
[QUOTE=tomndebb] I do not have a French etymological disctionary, so I do not know where the phrase originated, but it now means “hopping” without any genuine references to bells. [/QUOTE] In this context, _cloche_ comes from the verb _clocher_, meaning to limp. It comes from the Low-Latin _cloppus_. _Cloche_ as in “bell” either comes either from Low-Latin or High-German _clocca_ (the word is the same in both languages). The two words may originally be related, with “bell” possibly deriving from “limp”, the connection being the oscilating movement. I’m getting this from the [Littré Dictionary](http://francois.gannaz.free.fr/Littre/xmlittre.php?rand=&requete=cloche&submit=Rechercher). ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2007, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/korean-baseball-fight-is-this-a-joke/419332/26 "2007-09-17T15:09:46Z")
[Here](http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20070913&content_id=2206316&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb) they say it’s a staged part of a celebrity baseball game, but don’t give a cite. -FrL- [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/korean-baseball-fight-is-this-a-joke/419332.md?page=1)