Chess and games

Chess has a technical language that gets used well away from the board: somebody speaking of una posición de tablas or of un sacrificio is rarely talking about pieces. Near the end of the list is el árbitro de la sala, and there English does something odd. The person who applies the rules has a different name in almost every game: football has a « referee », tennis and cricket an « umpire », chess and arbitration an « arbiter », golf a « marshal ». A speaker of English has to know the sport before naming the official. Spanish has el árbitro for all of them, on any field and in a courtroom too, and asks only what the person does: decide between two sides who cannot decide for themselves.