Written records of swimming date back to around 2000 BC, however, nowhere are strokes or techniques mentioned, children were simply taught to swim. A document dating from 2160 BC to 1780 BC from an Egyptian nobleman says that "his sons took swimming lessons with the king's sons" (Colwin 4). Furthermore, many passages in the biblical Old Testament mention swimming or the act of swimming; as in the Old Testament book of Isaiah: "as he that swimth spreadeth out his hands to swim" (KJV Isa 25:11). Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Until around 1500, there were no swimming manuals that taught specific techniques. In 1559, Sir Everard Digby wrote, in Latin, A Short Introduction to Learning to Swim. Christofer Middleton later translated Sir Digby's work into common English “for the better instruction of those who do not understand the Latin tongue” (Digby 1). Digby wrote instructions on how to swim "like a dog" and "like a dolphin", as well as many other forms (Digby index). From there, other manuals were written to further refine the styles. Although swimming began as an old pastime, the history of competitive swimming did not exist until the early 1800s because competitive swimming itself did not exist. Until then, swimming was a pleasant pastime intended more for relaxation than physical exercise. That mentality changed during the 19th century in Britain with the opening of St George's Baths in 1828, the first public indoor swimming pool. Later, in 1837, the British National Swimming Society built many more indoor swimming pools and began organizing swimming competitions (Sharma 1). Although the sport remained in the background for several decades, its popularity steadily grew until swimming debuted on a global scale in 1837. 1896 Greek Olympics. In recent decades, athletes such as Mark Spitz, Michael Phelps, Ryan Lochte, Nathan Adrian , Natalie Coughlin, Katie Ladecky and Missy Franklin led swimming to become one of the most televised sports during the Summer Olympics. The language of the sport of competitive swimming employs many words from non-aquatic sources. For example, the butterfly stroke, although supposedly invented in 1933 by Brooklyn swimmer Henry Myers (Colwin 30). The butterfly stroke, on the other hand, takes its name from the butterfly insect as the technique resembles that of its namesake somewhat. Many other words in the swimming lexicon follow the same mentality. Named not for who invented the technique, but rather for what it looks like. Kicks such as the dolphin kick and the whip kick, when classified in this way, provide pristine examples of this method. The dolphin kick resembles that of a dolphin's tail moving up and down in the water. The whip kick, sometimes called a frog kick, also makes sense because when human legs perform the kick they mimic the action of frog legs. The swimming strokes themselves contain other examples of words from non-aquatic sources. Butterfly (explained above), backstroke, breaststroke and freestyle have nothing to do with water. The back and breast strokes seem to be self-explanatory, one performed while swimming on your back and the other performed while swimming with your chest or breast side facing down in the water. Although it is the simplest to swim, freestyle tends to exist as a more complex term to understand. Technically breast, back, and fly exist as alternative strokes for freestyle, although they are usually traditionally performed as the complete reverse of backstroke. Freestyle takes up the dictionary definition of “enjoying personal rights or.