Word of the Day: Ничья

I've picked up a little bit of Russian by accident. You can't avoid it if you play chess, since for decades of Soviet dominance it has been one of the major chess languages. I always knew that the ничья at the end of a game score meant 'drawn' because the score would be 0.5-0.5 or 0,5-0,5 (some Europeans do this), or ½-½.

After learning Greek, I began to realise that the impenetrable thicket of Russian alphabetical symbols was somewhat related. Those letters can be more or less transliterated nechya, and yes, they do mean that the game is drawn.

But nechya doesn't literally mean 'draw'. It means ' nobody's ', which does provide an interesting insight into the Russian mind.

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As an aside, do you know why a game is said to be 'drawn'?

The word 'draw' comes from things like Old English dragan and is related to Latin 'tractus' (from which we get 'traction', 'extract', 'subtract' and so on). It is even related to the word 'trek' which is some Western European version. In all these senses, it implies 'to draw out' or 'to exhaust'. A drawn look is an exhausted look.

A drawn game is therefore one that has been exhausted. Everything's been extracted and nothing's left.