Chess and its associated stratagems has pretty interesting etymological, if not instantly recognizable rather shallow and bursting through languages’ foundations, roots. The game, as it is known in English, comes from the French term eschequier, after the Latin name for a the table of a counting-house that bore a signature checked pattern, whose contrast may it easier not to miss a coin strayed from the pile.
Such parquet is reduplicated in the gracious marble lobbies of financial institutions and in officers of the Exchequer. A checkmate, of course, refers to a move that keeps the opponent’s king in check, helpless and few alternatives, and the German name of the game and term,
Schach and
Schachmatt, reveal more about the Persian origins—sheik, shah and such—for ruler or king paired with an even older association than matched or
mรผde (tired, a Yiddish derived folk-etymology but not something without meaning) for the second part, maat, meaning
bedded or
retiring. For players physically separated from one another, the pound-sign became telegraph notation for a checkmate situation whose shorthand was an important precursor for code later developed, the hash-marks of programming language. Baker-Zebra, or rather Bravo-Zulu in modern parlance, is an old naval semaphore designation, arbitrary, but filed under B housekeeping and the last register to signify a job well-done.
