Perhaps a look at the history of table tennis/ping-pong will give us a clue as to what we should be calling our favorite sport.

该如何称呼这项备受喜爱的运动——table tennis还是ping-pong？或许，追溯其历史渊源能够为我们提供一些启示。

According to the ITTF website， the first use of the name “Table Tennis” appeared on a board and dice game made by J. H. Singer of New York in 1887， showing that the phrase “table tennis” had been around at least since then.

国际乒联网站的资料显示，table tennis这一名称最早见于1887年，当时纽约的J. H. 辛格公司在其设计的棋盘和骰子游戏中首次使用了这一词语。这表明table tennis这一名称至少从那时起就已存在。

In 1901， John Jacques registered “Ping-Pong” as a trade name in England， and the American rights were sold to Parker Brothers. On the 12th of December 1901， “The Table Tennis Association” was formed in England and four days later， “The Ping-Pong Association” was also formed in England. These two associations would later merge in 1903 to become “The United Table Tennis and Ping-Pong Association”， and then would eventually change back to “The Table Tennis Association” before dying out in 1904.

1901年，约翰·雅克在英国将Ping-Pong注册为商标，而美国的商标使用权则转售给了帕克兄弟。同年12月12日，The Table Tennis Association在英国成立。仅四天后，The Ping-Pong Association也在英国成立。这两个协会于1903年合并为The United Table Tennis and Ping-Pong Association，后又改回The Table Tennis Association，直至1904年解散。

This seems to suggest that the names ping-pong and table tennis were fairly interchangeable at the origin of the sport. And as Parker Brothers were apparently very aggressive in protecting their rights to the trade name “Ping-Pong” in America， it is perhaps understandable that when the game began to revive in England and Europe in the 1920’s， the name table tennis was preferred to ping-pong to avoid trademark disputes. It would also explain why the governing body of the sport is the International Table Tennis.

这段历史说明，在这项运动兴起初期，ping-pong和table tennis这两个名称是可以互换使用的。