Talk:Bullseye (target)

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Isn't the correct term for this bull's-eye? 159.153.129.39 (talk) 00:51, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

This is exactly what I was thinking. I'm 99% sure it is. --kaoskastle (Talk) 15:47, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Bullseye in target archery

The gold isn't the bullseye. It depends upon what style and what distance you're shooting. It might be worth to note that nobody who shoots even remotely seriously calls the 10 or x ring a bullseye. PanacheCuPunga (talk) 10:59, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

Also note that the cited article for the "shoot at a bull's skull" story notes that the origin is disputed and "some believe" that the bull's skull was used as a target in English militia practice, but documented usage of the term starts much later. The show cited repeats the story, also noting that it's not certain. Neither article nor show provide any links to supporting material. 12.38.143.114 (talk) 20:13, 10 January 2020 (UTC) Leif Bennett

Problem After Problem

The first sentence of the article runs:

The bullseye, or bull's-eye, since 1833, has been called the center of a shooting target, and by extension, since 1857, it is the name given to any "shot that hits the mark".

If it is the bull's eye that has been called the center of a shooting target, then before 1833 it must have been a thing in some social reality in which it was not called the center of a shooting target; instead, it is the center that was first given the name BE in 1833. More importantly still, since far more people play darts than draw bows or shoot guns, "center of a target" is far more accurate than "of a shooting target." Syntactically, the sentence is a compound one that turns upon the coordinating conjunction and, which should not be separated from the first clause. And why in the world is "shot that hits the mark" enclosed between quotation marks? The revision might go:

The bullseye or bull's eye has, since 1833, been the name for the center of a target and, by extension, since 1857, has been given to any throw, toss, or shot that hits the center.

The next sentence runs:

By extension, the word bullseye can also refer to any design or pattern featuring prominent concentric circles, visually suggesting an archery target, and "hitting the bullseye" is a term for an unexpectedly good success.

Since the expression "by extension" has been used once, the principle of elegant variation requires the use of a synonymous one. Not just any design or pattern that features concentric circles can suggest an archery target: an archery target features four concentric circular bands, each of a different color, around a brightly colored central target sphere.

But there are two more problems.

First, the word bull's eye is never used to refer to the whole design, but only to the center of that design. Second, if all that is in question is the occurrence of a visual design that looks like an archery target, then to refer to the center with the word bull's eye is not to use a metaphor—that would be like saying that, when somebody designs an image of a door, with hinges, a knob, and so on, it is a metaphor to say that the door has hinges and a knob. The observation about the design is irrelevant to the final point.

But in the statement of that point there is also a problem. The term "hitting the bull's eye" does not denote an unexpected success, because the metaphor could make no sense unless, in real life, there was a possibility analogous to that of missing the mark, and so striking one of the outer bands. You can only hit the bull's eye metaphorically if you possess the intelligence, insight, sensitivity, alertness, experience, skill, and so on, not to be fooled into choosing, doing, or identifying something that is only more or less close to, or otherwise quite removed from, the one thing that constitutes the ideal thing or the necessary thing and so on. Our writer used unexpected because he was trying to capture the inherent difficulty of hitting the bull's eye. Hence a revision might run:

In a further development, success in an endeavor in which there is such inherent difficulty that most people are far more likely to choose, do, or identify something that is either unfortunately only close to or dismissively far from the ideal or necessary thing to choose can be called "hitting the bull's eye."

The next paragraph runs:

The origin of the word bullseye, when it comes to shooting at the center of a target, may come from the early days of archery when English archers would gather together after church services in small villages to practice and show their advanced skill as an archer. They would aim at a bull's skull, because it would test the penetrating capabilities of the arrow. The test of skill was not only to see if they could actually aim at the skull and hit it, but to see if they could hit it through the eye socket—or in other words, to hit it right through the bull's eye.

Archery has been around for millennia, so there is no way that English archers practiced in the "early days" of archery. Several archers cannot test their skill as an archer. The fact that archers would gather after church services in small villages is irrelevant. In general, the passage is far too wordy. I suggest this revision:

The center of the target may have come to be called the bull's eye from the practice of English archers who, both to develop and to exhibit their skills, would attempt to shoot an arrow through the eye socket of a bull's skull.

Hence the entire proposed revision reads so:

The bullseye or bull's eye has, since 1833, been the name for the center of a target and, by extension, since 1857, has been given to any throw, toss, or shot that hits the center.

In a further development, success in an endeavor in which there is such inherent difficulty that most people are far more likely to choose, do, or identify something that is either unfortunately only close to or dismissively far from the ideal or necessary thing to choose can be called "hitting the bull's eye."

The center of the target may have come to be called the bull's eye from the practice of English archers who, both to develop and to exhibit their skills, would attempt to shoot an arrow through the eye socket of a bull's skull.

I will post these revisions, but of course anyone who has a finer eye for conceptual or logical errors should subject mine to their more exacting scrutiny. Wordwright (talk) 02:45, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Personally, I find the story of people shooting arrows at bull skulls to be quite dubious. Sounds very much like urban myth. Language changes unpredictably and in illogical ways, and many of these legends come from people looking for some logical connection when there is none. (For example, "What's the skinny?" to mean "What's going on?" There's no logical reason "skinny" should've been used for that, but there you go.) Did this supposedly happen prior to the 1800s, because that really suggests something rather medieval, but even in the Middle Ages people practiced shooting at targets rather than skulls, which make for a poor target. (Arrows were hand made and expensive back then.) I think we need a much better source for that. More likely is that the term had been used back in the Middle Ages for just about anything with a small hole in it, with a common example being the bullseye in medieval crown glass (which very much resembled a target). Zaereth (talk) 02:00, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

I fixed the etymology. I read the previous source and, as I suspected, it was just a bunch of people sitting around bullshitting (to use a relevant term). It was literally, "Hey, why do you think we use this word for that." and everybody chiming in with their BS answers, with only one making up some semi-plausible, yet way to literal, sounding stuff in a Cliff Clavin-esque fashion. I gotta admit, I figured this was some urban myth. I wasn't expecting to find the origin of the myth. Anyhow, I added some real facts without any conjecture, which is how etymology should be done. Let the reader decide if there is a connection. Zaereth (talk) 00:40, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

In reviewing all of this, I have to wonder if the term in the modern sense didn't originate from the center of a lens, that is, an early rifle scope or ship's telescope, rather than the center of a round window, and then was later applied to a target itself. But that's pure conjecture on my part. Language is often far more figurative than literal. Zaereth (talk) 03:17, 17 September 2023 (UTC)