When out with an acquaintance, I showed off my unresponsive YYJ Classic and did a few some tricks. As I was describing what an unresponsive yoyo was, he said:
“So basically, it’s a yoyo that doesn’t work”
It got me thinking. As the term is generally understood, a “yoyo” is something that goes up and down when you pull on the string. In fact, this is the dictionary definition of a yoyo:
“A toy consisting of a pair of joined discs with a deep groove between them in which string is attached and wound, which can be spun alternately downward and upward by its weight and momentum as the string unwinds and rewinds.”
Here’s another definition from Merriam-Webster:
“A round toy that has two flat sides with a string attached to its center, that is held in your hand, and that is made to go up and down by unwinding and rewinding the string with a movement of your wrist”.
“A spoollike toy consisting of two thick wooden, plastic, or metal disks connected by a dowel pin in the center to which a string is attached, one end being looped around the player’s finger so that the toy can be spun out and reeled in by wrist motion.”
I think it’s pretty clear that unresponsive throws are not really yoyos - at least from the standard usage of the word, don’t you think?
So maybe…just maybe…we shouldn’t be calling unresponsive throws “yoyos” at all, when they don’t carry out the most defining feature of a yoyo. Certainly as the term “yoyo” is commonly understood, if it doesn’t return with a tug is something else - but not a yoyo. I know that we who have been using them think of them as yoyos, but a neutral third party probably wouldn’t.
What do you think? Do you think the term “yoyo” is misleading when dealing with unresponsive play?