Why do we say “net assembly” in table tennis?

Table tennis is played across a net. Like tennis, table tennis, badminton, and the ball games volleyball and futsal, it is played over a net. In table tennis, the equipment associated with the net is called a “net assembly”. It means a collection of nets.

According to the English dictionary, “net assembly” is a combination of the words “net,” meaning a net, and “assembly,” meaning an assembly. In table tennis, it refers to the net and all the equipment attached to it, such as poles, rods, and clamps.

The word ‘net’ is also an old word in the West. You can even find it in the Old English Gospels. The etymology can be traced back to Indo-European languages, the roots of Western languages. It’s closely related to the Latin words nodus, meaning knot, and nexus, meaning union. In Indo-European, the word ‘Ned’ means to tie, and is said to share the same root as this word. It wasn’t until the 12th century that English borrowed the word ‘net’ in earnest. It was used to mean a net woven with rope. It wasn’t until the 17th century that tennis, an aristocratic sport, became popularized in England. Games played over a net share a common feature with soccer and basketball 메이저놀이터, where points are scored by knocking the ball into the opponent’s court without physical contact. The idea is to serve the ball into the opponent’s court to continue the rally.
The word “net” is now widely used to symbolize not only sports, but also the internet. The word net has been used interchangeably with the Internet since 1971, when the ARPANET was created by the U.S. Department of Defense. Prior to that, the word network was coined to refer to a complex system of interconnected systems in the industrialization era with the advent of railroads and electricity. The word net has come to symbolize not only sports, but also a high-tech society (see “Why do we say ‘net’?” in this Corner #491).

The word ‘assembly’ comes from the Old French word ‘asemblee’, meaning a gathering or assembly, and was borrowed into English in the early 15th century. It wasn’t until 1914 that it began to be used to mean an assembly. The use of the term ‘net assembly’ in table tennis is believed to date from 1926, when the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) was founded and its first convention was held.

According to the ITTF rules, the net is set up by means of strings attached to vertical poles 15.25 centimeters high at each end, with the outer limit of the poles being 15.25 centimeters from the sideline. The height of the net must be 15.25 cm above the playing surface throughout its length, with the bottom of the net as close as possible to the playing surface throughout its length. Both ends of the net must be attached to the support rods from bottom to top. The length between the two poles should be 183 cm.