Sporting Vernacular 31. Bicycle

CARL FOGARTY won his fourth world Superbike title, at Hockenheim yesterday, while most of the world's best pedal-powered cyclists were making their way round the toughest ever Tour of Spain course.

"Bicycle" literally means "two-wheeled", from the Greek kklos ("circle, wheel"). First used in French, its English debut came in an 1868 Daily News report of "bysicles and trysicles on the Champs- Elysees and Bois de Boulogne". For a decade before that, the word used was "velocipede", literally "swift foot".

Towards the end of the last century, …