Mason Wheeler 5 12 I think the head is obviously the frequently featured famous person's head. And, the tail is just the opposite of that. DavidM I agree with you, but I'd also be interested to see if anyone can provide any evidence as to why it's "tails" over "heels", "feet", "back of head", etc.
Interestingly, the first English angel coin had the angel and dragon on one side so, "tails" but a ship on the other so, not "heads" en. Among farthings, at least, there was no coin with both a headed and a tailed entity up to the time of the first recorded usage of "tails" as per Susan's answer en. We talk about someone going head over heels and the head and foot of the table. Many British coins have had less obvious "tails" on the obverse for a long time: George and Dragon on sovereigns, and endless heraldic lions on most silver coins.
Equally interesting is why it's plurals: Surely "head or tail" makes more sense, unless it came about during William and Mary's reign?
More generally, tail as the opposite of head is found prior to that, in several pairings of the Latin caput and cauda , such as caput draconis and cauda draconis literally "dragon's head" and "dragon's tail" for the lunar nodes. To find tail coming into use here is not a surprise.
Interestingly, most Farthings from the 's that I've seen had neither a tail nor a head pictured on them. Mostly buildings and crests. TonyArra 1 6. I believe tails is just the opposite of heads. But, the heads is exactly as you've described. DavidM - if that is true why is there so much variation in the term when I travel? RyeBread Can you give an example? I would guess it depends upon what's on your coins.
If there is always a frog on one side and monkey on the other, you'd probably say "frogs or monkeys. DavidM - Look at Mason's comment under my answer. Also how about Roman example. And in Japan I think they say Head or Words. RyeBread Your answer doesn't obviate my comment. Rather, it shows that it in fact depends upon what was on the other side. In countries where the cross was commonly on the obverse, you would say crosses. As to Mason, well he's from Argentina.
Argentina's Spanish is very heavily influenced by Italian. In fact many other Spanish speakers swear their accents are Italian! In an association football match, the team winning the coin toss chooses which goal to attack in the first half; the opposing team kicks off for the first half.
For the second half, the teams switch ends, and the team that won the coin toss kicks off.
heads or tails
Coin tosses are also used to decide which team has the pick of going first or second in a penalty shoot-out. Before the earlys introduction of the penalty shootout , coin tosses were occasionally needed to decide the outcome of tied matches. The most famous instance of this was the semifinal game of the European Championship in Italy between Italy and the Soviet Union , which finished after extra time. Italy won, and went on to become European champions. In cricket the toss is often significant, as the decision whether to bat or bowl first can influence the outcome of the game.
Similarly, in tennis a coin toss is used in professional matches to determine which player serves first. The player who wins the toss decides whether to serve first or return, while the loser of the toss decides which end of the court each player plays on first. In duels a coin toss was sometimes used to determine which combatant had the sun at his back.
The National Football League also has a coin toss for tie-breaking among teams for playoff berths and seeding, but the rules make the need for coin toss, which is random rather than competitive, very unlikely. A similar procedure breaks ties for the purposes of seeding in the NFL Draft ; these coin tosses are more common, since the tie-breaking procedure for the draft is much less elaborate than the one used for playoff seeding. Major League Baseball once conducted a series of coin flips as a contingency on the last month of its regular season to determine home teams for any potential one-game playoff games that might need to be added to the regular season.
Just Flip A Coin
Most of these cases did not occur. From the season , the method to determine home-field advantage was changed. Although in most international matches this is now done electronically by the scoring apparatus. Pettygrove , who each owned the claim to the land that would later become Portland, Oregon , wanted to name the new town after their respective hometowns of Boston, Massachusetts and Portland, Maine ; Pettygrove won the coin flip.
Scientists sometimes use coin flipping to determine the order in which they appear on the list of authors of scholarly papers. In December , Australian television networks Seven and Ten , which shared the broadcasting of the AFL Season , decided who would broadcast the Grand Final with the toss of a coin. In some jurisdictions, a coin is flipped to decide between two candidates who poll equal number of votes in an election , or two companies tendering equal prices for a project. Each candidate will be given five chances to flip a coin; the candidate with the most number of "heads" wins.
The mayoral election in San Teodoro, Oriental Mindoro was decided on a coin flip, with a winner being proclaimed after the second round when both candidates remained tied in the first round.
Coin flipping
In the United States , a coin toss determines the class of the senators of a state being added to the Union, with the new state's senators due to be entering the US Senate. Under state law, the election was to be decided by drawing a name from a bowl, although a coin toss would also have been an acceptable option. The chair of the Board of Elections drew the film canister with Yancey's name, and he was declared the winner. A Yancey win extended the Republican advantage to , whereas a Simmonds win would have resulted in a tie. As there is no provision for breaking ties in the House as a whole, this would have forced a power sharing agreement between the two parties.
The outcome of coin flipping has been studied by Persi Diaconis and his collaborators. Further, in actual flipping, people exhibit slight bias — "coin tossing is fair to two decimals but not to three. That is, typical flips show biases such as. In studying coin flipping, to observe the rotation speed of coin flips, Diaconis first used a strobe light and a coin with one side painted black, the other white, so that when the speed of the strobe flash equaled the rotation rate of the coin, it would appear to always show the same side.
This proved difficult to use, and rotation rate was more accurately computed by attaching floss to a coin, such that it would wind around the coin — after a flip, one could count rotations by unwinding the floss, and then compute rotation rate as flips over air time. Moreover, their theoretical analysis of the physics of coin tosses predicts a slight bias for a caught coin to be caught the same way up as it was thrown, with a probability of around 0.
Since the images on the two sides of actual coins are made of raised metal, the toss is likely to slightly favor one face or the other if the coin is allowed to roll on one edge upon landing. Coin spinning is much more likely to be biased than flipping, and conjurers trim the edges of coins so that when spun they usually land on a particular face. Human intuition about conditional probability is often very poor and can give rise to some seemingly surprising observations. After making an appearance in the knockouts for six successive years, the Stars ended their previous season with wooden spoon.
The talismanic T20 players from England - Luke Wright and Kevin Pietersen - have retired, but that hasn't hampered their strength. Under coach Stephen Fleming, the Stars arguably have the strongest middle order in the competition as they possess three world-class all-rounders - Marcus Stoinis, Dwayne Bravo and the new captain Glenn Maxwell.
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With a couple of wrist spinners at their disposal, the Stars once again have a strong side on paper. Despite topping the table twice, Adelaide Strikers failed to even reach the finals of the tournament in the first six years. That jinx was broken last year when they finished second after the round robin games and eventually ended up lifting the trophy.
The defending champions under coach Jason Gillespie haven't made any drastic changes to their winning combination. The Strikers, who have a phenomenal bowling attack, possess one of the best T20 tweakers going around in the world - Rashid Khan. The Afghanistan leg-spinner, was the leading wicket-taker in the previous season in spite of not playing the knockout matches. This year, however, much to the dislike of his opponents, Rashid will be available for the entire competition. One major drawback for the South Australian side will be the unavailability of their skipper and key batsman Travis Head for a large chunk of matches who will be on international duty.
A team that is loaded with individual stars, the only factor that needs to be seen is if they can perform well as a team. The Hurricanes have retained their overseas pace duo of Jofra Archer and Tymal Mills, but the former's availability for the whole season looks iffy. The lack of power-hitters might put the Hurricanes behind the eight ball and the release of Dan Christian has only made them poorer. However, if the experienced players blend well with the talented youngsters, Hobart could be a force to reckon with.
With just one title win and a solitary semifinal finish, Brisbane Heat haven't hit their straps considering their talent. Chris Lynn and James Pattinson are the biggest Australian stars in their line-up and there will be a lot of focus on how they perform. Lynn might have replaced Brendon McCullum as the captain, but the onus will once again be on the Bash Brothers to deliver the goods at the top of the order which also includes an exciting teenager Max Bryant.
On a bouncy Gabba home track, though one would think of a pace-filled bowling attack, the Heat side comprises of two spinners - Mujeeb Ur Rahman and Mitchell Swepson - who are expected to make it to the playing XI. With the likes of Ben Cutting and Joe Burns in their ranks. Melbourne Renegades hold the unwanted distinction of being the only BBL side to have not featured in a final. They have always relied heavily on Aaron Finch who will miss significant matches this season as he will be playing for the national side along with Test opener Marcus Harris.
The experienced Victorian Cameron White will likely be leading the side in Finch's absence.