Wall Chart

Wall chart is an ordinary English compound with no chess-specific word history. Chart entered English in the 1570s meaning a map for the use of navigators, from French charte and Late Latin charta meaning paper, card or map, itself from Greek khartes; the general sense of a sheet on which information is presented in a methodical or tabulated form dates from 1840. A wallchart in general usage is a type of large poster often displaying information for educational use or entertainment, and one popular use is to track the progress of sports teams in cup events. In chess the term is a tournament-administration term of art rather than a coinage: the US Chess rulebook instructs that game results should be posted, as quickly as convenient, to wall charts that are prominently displayed, that pairing cards are used to prepare the wall chart under rule 28O, and that Swiss team events need two sets of wall charts, one for team results and one for individual results. No source found in this session documents a first chess use or a datable chess coinage of the term.

First documented: n.a. — n.a.