Coachean Debate Dictionary, Installment 1

Turn: 1. Another name for any argument whatsoever (novice only). 2. Way to get your opponent’s argument to work either in your own favor or against your opponent. Care must be taken with arguments that turn both your own and your opponent’s cases, following which neither of you is better off than when you started (varsity). 3. That thing which, when correct, is what your bus missed two hours ago.

PF (Public Forum): 1. LD for dummies.

LD (Lincoln-Douglas): 1. Policy for dummies.

Policy (P): 1. LD for schools without an LD program.

Congress: AKA Legislative Debate, Congressional Debate, Chloroform on the Hoof. 1. PF for dummies. 2. Extemp for dummies.

Extemp: 1. Complicated dance which begins with dropping hand into hat and drawing three slips of paper, throwing two back, running to desk to research, scratching out case on index card, walking through hallways to round talking to oneself, standing still and telling same empathetic personal story in no way related to subject for the one thousandth four hundredth and eighty eighth time while demonstrating how it relates to subject, two steps to the left, contention one, two steps to the right, contention two, two steps to the middle, spin your partner, do-si-do, summarize, walk out of room, whine to coach. 2. Repeat.

Theory: 1. Thing one may lose on, but never in.

PIC: 1. Argument which, if you have to wonder if your judge will understand it, your judge won’t understand.

RVI: 1. Affirmative argument that judges inevitably a) do not understand, and b) will cite as key in their RFD.

RFD: AKA Reason for Decision. 1. Why a given side won a debate. Example (college judge): “Oral.” Example (parent judge) “The aff was more persuasive.” Example (high school junior judge): “Your argument isn’t what I’m running, so you lose.”

Ballot: 1. Explanation from the judge of what happened in a round and why a particular decision was rendered. 2. Missing item from any crucial round where the decision was not clear.

Minorities in debate: 1. The majority of people in debate.

Tab room: 1. Secret location at tournament where pairings are cooked up out of the imaginations of coaches too removed from the activity to actually adjudicate, using their private little cadre of demonic judges promoting their hidden agenda to ruin [insert LD, PF or Policy] debate for all time, to which entry by students is strictly limited to those who are bleeding profusely and entry by adults is strictly limited to those who are not here to complain, hang out with the cool people or generally exist in the same universe. 2. Place where the door is always open, and everybody knows your name, and whatever you want comes before what they want.

Tab room staff: 1. 1. Nastiest adults at any tournament. No, really. You should watch these people in action.

Ballot table: 1. Literally, a table where tab room staff put the ballots. 2. Place at which, if a student is sitting there, said student mistakenly believes he or she is running the tournament. Advent of preprinted ballots eliminated need for students to sit at ballot table in 1992.

Debate ziti: 1. Large tubs of formerly hot pasta available, usually for free, at debate tournaments. 2. “Tastes of the Mediterranean” or “Pasta Bar”. But no, really, it’s still formerly hot pasta, no matter what they call it.