Anne is seen here playing hopscotch on a new artwork on the sidewalk in front of CNB Bank Park in downtown Maplewood. As the pictured shopping bag attests, we were there doing some Christmas shopping. While this unnamed art isn’t exactly a hopscotch court that didn’t prevent Anne from using her imagination and having some fun with it. It also occasioned her to wonder about the origin of the word hopscotch. Allow me to elucidate or in the vernacular mansplain. The origin of the game itself dates back to iron age India. The English etymology of the word hopscotch is a portmanteau of the words hop and scotch, the latter is used in the sense of an incised line or scratch and not the people of northern Great Britain. While in Scotland the game is known as Peevers, Peeverels and Pabats. The shopping bag you can think of as her lagger, in place of a stone.