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Bowling Terminology
If you decide to bowl in a league, you’ll probably have to learn bowling terminology. You may have trouble participating in a league if you don’t study your bowling terminology ahead of time. Bowling terminology is very easy to learn, much like simply learning additional meanings for other words you already know.
Address: The bowler’s stance when he starts to bowl.
All the way: A bowler who is going “all the way” is trying to finish the game with only strikes.
Anchor: The last team member to bowl, he is also usually the strongest player on the team.
Approach: The area of the lane that falls between the back of the ball return area and the foul lane.
Baby Ball: When a bowler uses too light of a touch to roll the ball and doesn’t hit the pins hard enough.
Barmaid, Bicycle, Double Wood, One in the Dark, Sleeper, or Tandem: All of these terms mean two pins standing one right behind the other.
Bench work: When one player tries to psych out or upset another player emotionally.
Blow, error, miss, open: When a player tries to pick up the other picks on a spare, but misses.
Body English: When a player moves his arms and legs in an attempt to make the ball go a certain way while it rolls down the lane.
Chicken Wing or Flying Elbow: The bowler’s elbow moves away from his body during a swing. This style is strongly frowned upon.
Leadoff man: The first team member to play.
Conversion: When a bowler successfully makes a spare or picks up all the pins left by his first shot.
Dead Wood: Pins that were knocked down but still remain in the lane.
Fill: The pins knocked down in added turns which occur after the 10th frame because of a strike or spare in the 10th frame.
Full Hit: A perfectly-aimed ball that hits solidly exactly where the bowler wants it to hit.
Gutter shot: A technique that involves rolling the ball from an inch off the gutter.
Head pin: the front pin on a deck of bowling pins.
Hook: For right-handed bowlers, a ball that cuts to the left, and for left-handed bowlers, a ball that cuts to the right.
Late 10: When pin number 10 wiggles a little before falling last.
Pinching: When a bowler grips the ball too hard.
Rail: A spare that leaves the four pins straight back on either the right or left side of the pin deck.
Foundation: A strike in the 9th frame, which lays the foundation to get three strikes in the 10th frame.
D.O.A. or dead on arrival: A ball that usually ends up in a split because it doesn’t have any power when it hits the pins.
Bedposts, fence posts, goal posts, mule ears, snake eyes: All of these phrases refer to a 7-10 split, which means pins 7 and 10 are the only ones left standing. Pins 7 and 10 are the two outside pins in the back of the deck.
Action: A bowling technique which causes the pins to fall horizontally across the lane and spin, thus knocking down other pins in the process.
Crawler: A strike that’s made by missing the front pin and causing the other pins to fall in on each other.