By Sam Reeves

If you have read the first article of this series, then you know where this is going.

This time I am going to take on badminton. Badminton is a sport that’s like Pickleball in the sense that it’s a knockoff of tennis. Badminton uses little skinny racquets and a birdie (or shuttlecock, as it is known.) What you call the thing you hit with your racquet depends on how much of a pretentious douche you want to be. Badminton was first invented in 1873 in India by British expatriates. According to Wikipedia, which is the best source of information in the entire world, the game was known as Poona (or Poonah), after the garrison town of Poona, where it was initially popular. The rules were invented in 1873, but the true origins of its first play are unknown. The rules were ratified in 1890 by a British Badminton club. Clearly, the British had to control the process of playing this stupidly named game.

I am now going to call it Poona forever because that is objectively funny. “Hey, ma, I’ll just be out back with my wife playing Poona!” Simply incredible, if I do say so myself, which I do because I am writing this.

Anyway, the backstory is vague and stupid. Therefore, I will make up my own backstory for why this is stupidly named and make a case for a new name for this Olympic sport. Yeah, it’s an Olympic event; isn’t that ridiculously asinine? I want to meet the Olympians who go for badminton. I want to know if they train as hard as Simone Biles.

Badminton is an objectively bad name for this sport because it doesn’t have anything to do with the game. Also, is Badminton like British slang for “lazy person tennis”? Most of us have played badminton in someone’s backyard at a 4th of July party and tried to hit the ever-living crap out of the shuttlecock (tehe). You are lying if you say you haven’t. The name Poona would be better for this sport because it sounds like something you would yell as you wind up to hit the shuttlecock (tehe).

Also, calling that thing a shuttlecock (tehe) is weird too. It’s not an astronaut’s penis that you are hitting around. That would be inhumane. You can’t call it a birdie, or PETA will protest you, and well… it doesn’t really look like it should have a name. Also, the word “racquet” is inherently pretentious. That’s the King’s English, and we all know that that doesn’t fly here in ‘Merica. It’s a racket.

I propose we change the name to “Whack Battle,” which sounds perverted, but so does shuttlecock (tehe). Think about it. You are whacking the shuttlecock (tehe) around and trying to score 21 points before the opponent. It would be a nightmare to market to the Olympic committee, but that’s not my job. I’m an idea man. If you have a name for the object being hit around other than a birdie or… shuttlecock (tehe), please let us know.

Stay tuned for our next article on the series of stupidly named things. We will be progressing on this topic for a while. If you have ideas, let us know on our Twitter page! Bye-bye now.