Cambridge in Chunks: Let’s take a punt

One of the most popular activities for people to do when they visit Cambridge is to go punting. If you haven’t been to Cambridge before, then you might not know that a punt is a flat-bottomed boat that you can see many of on the River Cam. Many of these punts have a chauffeur (a person who is paid to control the boat), although it is also possible to control the boat yourself, in which case you are a punter.

And so, to recap, the boat is called a punt, and the activity is punting. Typically you would talk about punting by using the verb go, for example we’re going punting tomorrow. You could also use go with the word punt, but it is less common, for example we went on a punt, or if you tried to control the punt yourself, I couldn’t make the punt go where I wanted it to.

There is a similar phrase in English, where we say to take a punt. This is not about a boat though. Instead, it means to take a guess. For example, if I asked some people “how many bridges are there in Cambridge?” someone might say, “I’ll take a punt - 12!” This means they are being brave enough to take a guess.

We also use this if we talk about gambling. Someone can take a punt on a horse in a race by betting money that it will win. We can therefore also call people who are betting or taking a chance on something “punters”. It’s not uncommon to hear customers being called punters in the hospitality sector, for example in a bar or restaurant for example, “we didn’t have many punters in last night”. In a sense, we can think of the punters as trying out the particular venue.