Why Play?

Play is a very commonly used word that has various meanings in our society.  We “play” tic tac toe, “play” video games, “play” instruments, “play” games, “play” sports, etc.    According to Allen Guttmann’s Ritual to Record, he states that “play is any nonutilitarian physical or intellectual activity pursued for its own sake.”  According to our reading play is divided into spontaneous and organized.  Organized play can either be competitive or noncompetitive, and competitive play can either be intellectual or physical.  I suppose that the purpose for us to define play is to be able to classify sport, which is considered a competitive contest of organized play.  I don’t believe that play is the right term for the basis of sport.   I feel like play in itself is a broad term that describes spontaneity and organization instead of defining them.  I would probably change the to categorization of play and replace it with activity due to fact that it further defines spontaneity and organization.  Organized activity would then be divided into competitive and noncompetitive, and so on as listed above.