Why do you shout "four" in golf??
Answers:
It's not Four, it's 'fore - meaning 'Watch out afore' or ahead!
you dont you shout "fore" just sounds the same,.
Fore
it's actually "fore!"
you yell it when you think the ball you hit has strayed off course and might hit another golfer.
You do it when a party is ahead of you, to draw their attention that a ball is coming near. It's like yelling heads up!
FORE!!
Its to warn people that there's a nasty little hard ball flying through the air towards them.
I suppose its faster than shouting, "I say you chaps, would you mind awfully holding something over your cranium, I seem to have mis-hit the ball - oops, too late, sorry."
The actual spelling is "Fore" and it's to warn people of a wayward shot thats likely to come close to them I.E. Fore Right OR Fore Left! hope this helped you.
I shout "four" because that's how many swings it takes me before I can hit the bloody thing!
Everyone else shouts "fore" which is a polite way of saying that their shot is heading straight for someone else on the course.
Fore
Function: interjection
Etymology: probably short for before
-- used by a golfer to warn anyone within range of the probable line of flight of the ball
"Fore" is another word for "ahead" (think of a ship's fore and aft). Yelling "fore" is simply a shorter way to yell "watch out ahead" (or "watch out before"). It allows golfers to be forewarned, in other words.
The British Golf Museum cites an 1881 reference to "fore" in a golf book, establishing that the term was already in use at that early date (the USGA suggests the term may have been in use as early as the 1700s). The museum also surmises that the term evolved from "forecaddie."
A forecaddie is a person who accompanies a group around the golf course, often going forward to be in a position to pinpoint the locations of the groups' shots. If a member of the group hit an errant shot, the thinking goes, they may have alerted the forecaddie by yelling out the term.
It was eventually shorted to just "fore."
the previous answer are incorrect,fore is short for fore f--k sake
golf is the only game where you can legally hit someone in the head with a golf ball if you yell "four" before hand.
Love that sport.
Edna
You shout FORE for the same reason you wear those goofy little golf knickers, and stupid looking hats!
It's tradition!
As has already been stated it is "fore" rather than the number four. It is meant as a warning to other golfers that you have hit a ball in there direction.
The use of the word Fore rather than any other warning is just so there is a continuite and so all golfers are aware of danger.
As for the origins it is beleived simply to be a shortened of "For your attention" or words to that effect.
Just make sure you duck when you hear it!
Already asked and answered a few months ago.
actually it's not 'four' that you shout, it's 'fore' - sounds the same, hence the confusion. it's usually shouted to warn the others on the fairway that a golf ball is in play and to make sure they duck if it's flying in their direction.
We yell Fore because it would be improper to use the other F word.
Forewarn. Warning someone that a ball is heading their direction.
It used to be "nine!", but it got too confusing when golf spread as far as Germany.
Its not "four" but rather "fore" that is shouted to warn any people where your golf ball is directed that a golf ball is going to their direction. It is shouted as an advance warning to "forewarn" the other players.
It's to let the other players know that it is tea time.
"Four" being short for four o clock.
You don't, you shout "fore" as in " please be fore-warned" ( that you're about to get broadsided by a golfball)
I usually shout "four" accompanied by other expletives when I four putt a hole. I also shout quite a few fives and sixes.
The term is fore.and you only shout it when you have hit a shot that is heading in the direction of other golfers to warn them of possibly being hit. This dates back to a scotish tradition and is still used today. Sometimes it's best to yell fore and not be anywhere near the other golfers than to not yell fore and actually hit them. So if you hear it on the course, duck and cover!
It's not the # four is=====Whore=======
Your not a true Golfer.
You yell "fore" so you can laugh at the people ahead of you scramble and cover their heads. Do it again on the next hole and it gets even funnier!
Wherefore Fore?
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by Jim Corbett
Copyright, 1999
In the three years that I have been writing the advice column, "Ask Mr. Golf Etiquette," there is one question from readers that keeps coming up over and over again. Golfers everywhere want to know why golfers everywhere holler "FORE!" when they send a ball careening off in the wrong direction.
Generally, golfers know the term 'Fore' has been around for a long time, and they understand it to be one of those golfing traditions that endear the game to its many devoted fans. They are quite unsure, however, as to the origin of the term. In fact, many people think they are shouting the number, "FOUR!" and can't understand why they're not required to call out, "FIVE!" or "SIX" or some other equally irrelevant number.
For a long time it was mistakenly believed the term had its origin when an early Scottish golfer traipsing across the links cried out to a fellow golfer who was about to be beaned, "Forrr Gud's sakes, mon, git yurrr hed duwn if ya dunna care t' be feelin' a rrright smarrrt boomp." It is assumed that warning cry was unsuccessful in preventing the unwanted "boomp" since it was a tad on the long side, so it was shortened a bit to make it more practical. (However, even the shortened version, "Forrr Gud's sakes, mon, git yurrr hed duwn!" even proved to be too long and ultimately all the golfers really had time for was the, "Forrr" part.)
Despite the belief to the contrary, that is NOT origin of the term.
The Oxford English Dictionary says that the word "fore" used in a golf context is probably a contraction for "Before." It cites the first written use of the term in 1878 as, "A warning cry to people in front of the stroke." The Historical Dictionary of Golfing Terms, by Peter Davies also claims that "fore" is originally a Scottish word that is a shortened version of the word "before." (Peter Davies probably got it from the OED.)
Those explanations are unsatisfactory. They tell what the word 'fore' means; we already know that. What we're curious about is how we started using it in golf.
I had heard a story some time ago that lead me to believe the word had its basis in a command given by British commanders back in the days when the Redcoats lined up in columns to fire at an approaching enemy. The story as I understood it, was the Commander would call, "Fore!" to the "forward" row of troops lined up to fire and the forward line would kneel giving a clear shot to the row of troops behind.
The essence of the command then was to "get down because something is going to be fired over your head." There would have been a logical transition from that military context to the golfing context since military personnel were undoubtedly at least partially responsible for exporting the game of golf from the British Isles to the far reaches of the earth. (Let's not forget that whole, "Sun never sets on the British Empire" thing.)
In order to document that belief, I contacted, via the internet, several British military historians, all of whom discredited the story. They informed me that the command to which I had referred was not, "Fore!" but was actually, "Make Ready!" Well, since I had never heard any golfers shouting, "Make ready!" out on the course I just figured that, like so many times before, I had simply been misinformed.
Well, imagine my surprise when I was recently reading a book entitled, A History of Golf, by Robert Browning, (1955, J.M. Dent & Sons) and found the very reference for which I had been searching. Browning, a Scot, was the editor of the magazine called, "Golfing" from 1910 to 1955 and was a scholar devoted to tracing the authenticity of the many claims about the games history and lore.
I will let Browning's work describe the situation for interested readers:
Dr. Neilson, a keen student of Scottish history and literature, discovered a passage in the works of John Knox which, shorn of the eccentricities of sixteenth-century spelling, reads as follows: 'One among many comes to the East Port (i.e., gate) of Leith, where lay two great pieces of ordnance, and where their enemies were known to be, and cried to his fellows that were at the gate making defence: "Ware Before!" and so fires one great piece, and thereafter the other.' The cry of 'Beware before' -- Look out in front -- was, of course, the signal for the defenders of the gate to drop to the ground in order that the guns might be fired over them.
The situation is not dissimilar to that of the golfer intending to drive over the head of someone on the fairway in front, and the way in which the military signal 'Ware before!' might in the course of time be cut down to "Fore!" needs no explaining. 'Look out in front!' It is the most democratic of shouts, which no one dares to let pass unheeded. During an Open Championship at Sandwich many summers ago, I saw a future King of England scurrying apologetically off the fairway in response to a distant bellow of "Fore!" from one of our less distinguished professionals.
So the origin of the term is, after all, a warning cry of the Scottish military of "Ware before!" to signal to those in front that they should, "git yurrr hed duwn if ya dunna care t' be feelin' a rrright smarrrt boomp!" But not in so many words.
When you're out on the course and you think your shot might endanger another golfer, or you are trying to signal to them to, "Ware before!" sing out loud and clear with the most democratic of shouts, a term that all golfers will recognize: "FORE!"
The word is "fore" and it is to warn someone that a ball is heading towards them.
Ok, so by now you know its fore.
One explanation is that before the British military fired a volley, they would shout Beware before !! to warn the advancing infantry to lie down to avoid being hit by friendly fire.
Its since been shortened to fore !
So you don't kill somebody or to tell them that the ball is heading their direction!
You shout "fore" to warn players on the course that there is a ball moving towards them and they should get out of the way.
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