08 Apr A Deep Pool of Thought

Most of the time, we focus on the pool tables in our warehouse and helping the people who are looking for new or used pool tables. But there are times when the mind wanders…

Like recently, when someone started asking about why swimming pools and pool tables have the same name, but in a different order. And that led us to the conclusion that pool is a complicated word! There’s the game of pool, of course, but then there’s also the swimming pool, a pool of light and the gene pool. And let’s not forget the office pool on the big game. 

You can play pool or you can dive into a pool. You can pool your money or put money into one.

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the definition of pool is a lengthy one that includes the use of the word as both a noun and a verb:

 At the top of the list, pool is a noun defined as:

• a small and rather deep body of usually fresh water
• a quiet place in a stream
• a body of water forming above a dam
• something resembling a poola pool of light
• a small body of standing liquid
• continuous area of porous sedimentary rock that yields petroleum or gas
• swimming pool

 

Next, we have the definition of the intransitive verb pool:

• to form a pool
  • of blood : to accumulate or become static (as in the veins of a bodily part)

 

Moving on, we come to the second definition that Merriam-Webster gives for the noun pool (this is where it starts to get interesting as far as we are concerned):

• an aggregate stake to which each player of a game has contributed
• all the money bet by a number of persons on a particular event
• a game played on an English billiard game table in which each of the players stakes a sum and the winner takes all
• any of various games of billiards played on an oblong game table having 6 pockets with usually 15 object balls
• an aggregation of the interests or property of different persons made to further a joint undertaking by subjecting them to the same control and a common liability
• a readily available supply: such as
  • the whole quantity of a particular material present in the body and available for function or the satisfying of metabolic demands
  • a body product (such as blood) collected from many donors and stored for later use
  • a group of people available for some purpose such as a shrinking pool of applicants or a typing pool
• gene pool
• a group of journalists from usually several news organizations using pooled resources (such as television equipment) to produce shared coverage especially of events to which access is restricted

If you have now had more than enough of the word ‘pool,’ we understand completely. Fortunately, we also 3-in-1 poker tables, shuffleboard tables, theater seating for the home and billiards tables in the Warehouse.