I remember learning about this as a kid from, of all places, a 1976 detective show called City of Angels (starring Wayne Rogers). Ten-year-old me thought it was so cool they would even broach such a topic on TV. As ways to become radicalised go …
This Video (French) says it’s a thousand years old, but that seems not to be the case, more like like 4-500 years.
I think the NYT is mistaken, as here’s an engraving of «jeu de paume» from the 16th C
According to the very long and exhaustive wiki
“The term real was first used by journalists in the early 20th century as a retronym to distinguish the ancient game from modern lawn tennis”, and, is it happens, 'It is also known as court tennis in the United States, royal tennis in England and Australia, and courte-paume in France."
I think the kings were pissed when they started playing tennis outside. “That’s not real tennis”, they probably said.
This is terrific, and who cares who said it, but you should read this debunking from the Hannah Arendt center for the actual quote, from her last public interview in 1974:
“The moment we no longer have a free press, anything can happen. What makes it possible for a totalitarian or any other dictatorship to rule is that people are not informed; how can you have an opinion if you are not informed? If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer. This is because lies, by their very nature, have to be changed, and a lying government has constantly to rewrite its own history. On the receiving end you get not only one lie—a lie which you could go on for the rest of your days—but you get a great number of lies, depending on how the political wind blows. And a people that no longer can believe anything cannot make up its mind. It is deprived not only of its capacity to act but also of its capacity to think and to judge. And with such a people you can then do what you please.”
There might - possibly - be some irony here.
I have to chime in here, as it’s a subject close to my heart. The old Pyrex measuring cups don’t do this. I went out of my way to buy some on eBay. I can’t imagine why they redesigned like this, but there’s a lot of things I can’t imagine.