Feel like taking a swing at tennis yourself? The first step is understanding the game’s unique language, much of which is explained by tennis’French origins.“Love,”for example, representing a score of zero, may have come from l’oeuf, which is French for“egg.”“Deuce,”similar to the French word for“two,”refers to a situation in which two points in a row are required to win the game. The word“tennis”itself comes from the French tenez, which means,“Here, catch!”

想親自上場揮拍嗎?首先你必須了解這項運動獨特的語言，其中許多術語都要以網球的法語淵源來解釋。例如，love代表“零分”，可能是源于法文的l’oeuf，也就是“蛋”。deuce則和法文“二”原意相近，指的是選手必須連贏兩球才能拿下該局的情況。而tennis這個詞本身則是從法語tenez而來，意思是“瞧，接住”!

Getting started with tennis is easy, as long as you have a total of two or four players and a court to play on. Many cities have public tennis courts, so you don’t have to be an aristocrat to afford the game. You will, however, have to shell out for rackets and balls. Of the aristocratic points of etiquette that live on in tennis, an important one is that each player should bring a new can of balls to a game.

網球活動其實很容易開展，只要你湊夠兩個或四個人，然后找到一座球場就行了。許多城市都有公共網球場，所以你不必擁有貴族身份就打得起，不過，你得自掏腰包買球拍和球。網球運動至今尚存的貴族禮節中，很重要的一點就是每個球員都應該帶一筒新的球來參加比賽。