Body: <p>This question is about chess linguistics. Alekhine's gun is the pattern where the queen is placed behind two rooks.</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li>Who came up with the phrase?</li>
  <li>Is it clear which kind of gun they had in mind? </li>
  <li>In which language did the phrase originate? </li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>I always imagined "gun" in this context meant a piece of artillery such as a cannon, because surely the three heaviest chess pieces put together must be a heavy weapon! :-)</p>
  
  <p>I see that several of the non-English Wikipedia articles about it use cognates of cannon, for example, <em>Cannone di Alechin</em> (Italian) or <em>Canhão de Alekhine</em> (Portuguese). But on the Spanish-speaking world, the situation seems more confused: there are more Google hits for <em>pistola de Alekhine</em> than for <em>cañón de Alekhine</em>, and I can't tell which could be considered more authoritative. Could this have been a mistranslation?<br>
   On the other hand, the metaphor of threatening the player across the table with a pistol is also interesting, and I've also seen the queen behind the bishop called <em>Reti's rifle</em>, so maybe there's more of a small arms tradition in chess phrases than I originally thought.</p>
  
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2017-12-23T13:48:06.773Z
Comments.Text: might be inspired by: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chekhov%27s_gun
Comments.UserDisplayName: prusswan
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2018-01-12T23:09:49.323Z
Comments.Text: @prusswan I like that idea, and more to it is that Alekhine's gun functions much like Chekhov's in that it always fires! :)
Comments.UserDisplayName: postoronnim
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2017-11-17T14:36:52.333Z
Comments.Text: Related: The more abstract pattern (any group of two or three pieces of the same movement angle lined up) is called "battery".
Comments.UserDisplayName: Annatar
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2017-11-17T15:09:11.483Z
Comments.Text: The original game: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alekhine's_gun Alas, wiki doesn't source the appelation.
Comments.UserDisplayName: Evargalo
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2017-11-17T16:07:28.760Z
Comments.Text: I wouldn't be surprised if one of the commentators of the times with flowerish language, like S.Tartacower or H.Kmoch, had coined the expression.
Comments.UserDisplayName: Evargalo
Tags: <history><terminology><alekhine>
Title: What kind of gun is Alekhine's gun?
ThreadText: # What kind of gun is Alekhine's gun?
  
  (Asked by: username_0 on 2017-11-17)
  
  This question is about chess linguistics. Alekhine's gun is the pattern where the queen is placed behind two rooks.
  
  1. Who came up with the phrase?
  2. Is it clear which kind of gun they had in mind?
  3. In which language did the phrase originate?
  
  I always imagined "gun" in this context meant a piece of artillery such as a cannon, because surely the three heaviest chess pieces put together must be a heavy weapon! :-)
  
  I see that several of the non-English Wikipedia articles about it use cognates of cannon, for example, *Cannone di Alechin* (Italian) or *Canhão de Alekhine* (Portuguese). But on the Spanish-speaking world, the situation seems more confused: there are more Google hits for *pistola de Alekhine* than for *cañón de Alekhine*, and I can't tell which could be considered more authoritative. Could this have been a mistranslation?  
  On the other hand, the metaphor of threatening the player across the table with a pistol is also interesting, and I've also seen the queen behind the bishop called *Reti's rifle*, so maybe there's more of a small arms tradition in chess phrases than I originally thought.
  
  **Tags:** history, terminology, alekhine
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_3**: Related: The more abstract pattern (any group of two or three pieces of the same movement angle lined up) is called "battery".  
  > **username_4**: The original game: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alekhine's_gun Alas, wiki doesn't source the appelation.  
  > **username_4**: I wouldn't be surprised if one of the commentators of the times with flowerish language, like S.Tartacower or H.Kmoch, had coined the expression.  
  > **username_1**: might be inspired by: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chekhov%27s_gun  
  > **username_2**: @username_1 I like that idea, and more to it is that Alekhine's gun functions much like Chekhov's in that it always fires! :)  
  
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  ## 0 answers
  
  