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Bizarre football phrases | ||
Tags: Football/Soccer | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| krog Diglot Senior Member Austria Joined 6051 days ago 146 posts - 152 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Latin | Message 1 of 8 16 July 2009 at 3:51pm | IP Logged | |||||
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There are a lot of stock words and phrases, used in relation to football, that are,
frankly, a bit odd. For example: 'He's got a wand of a left peg.' (I don't think there could be a 'wand of a right peg') - not: he's got a good left leg. 'That was a blooter!' - not: good shot from distance. 'Into the mixer.' - not: the ball's played into the box. 'That was a massive performance'. - not: he played very well. 'That was a lovely touch'. - not: he controlled the ball deftly/well. Is this the result of individual commentators, players and journalists adding their pet phrases to the common football tongue over the years? Something to do with Sky hyping football? I don't think it's always been like that; from what I've watched of retro football, the jargon seemed more matter of fact - 'nicely played', or 'lovely goal, he'll be pleased with that', rather than 'that screamed into the back of the net'. Does this phenomenon exist in other languages? I don't mean, does football have it's own vernacular per se, after all, some way has to be found to describe the events that take place, but is this vernacular so florid and reliant on stock phrases (which are used 9 times out of 10 eg 'the new manager raided his former club for player X')? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5840 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 2 of 8 16 July 2009 at 4:30pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I've heard similar type of talking about football on German, Swedish and Spanish TV but I can't say I reflected much on it since football doesn't interest me. Normally I'd switch to another channel the minute footbal came on, but sometimes you can't avoid it. It's natural that it has it's own language with the massive interest and following in professional and international football.
I guess a lot of people are quite passionate about football and that's why they describe the act of somebody kicking a ball with so many nuances and with a lot of passion. The same thing can be said for lots of areas that people feel passionate about, such as music, art etc. In English, in particular the CORPORATE speech is full of sports allegories to try to motivate staff and generally portray the company as a team working for the same goal. This can be lost on women who may not be up to speed with some of the sports terminology. I'm a good example. Also, a lot of American sports allegores have sneaked in, even in Europe, referring to sports which the average European person is completely clueless about, i.e. baseball and American football etc. Like "three strikes and you're out" and many more. I hate them because it sounds cheesy and half the time I'm not sure what they are referring to. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| krog Diglot Senior Member Austria Joined 6051 days ago 146 posts - 152 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Latin | Message 3 of 8 16 July 2009 at 4:42pm | IP Logged | |||||
It's just not cricket. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6153 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 4 of 8 16 July 2009 at 5:57pm | IP Logged | |||||
Of these, I can't stand, "Let's touch base" when someone wants to organise an informal meeting. This is closely followed by "ballpark figure". 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Le dacquois Diglot Groupie France Joined 5649 days ago 54 posts - 69 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, German | Message 5 of 8 17 July 2009 at 11:43am | IP Logged | |||||
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I love football terminology. It's just so insane.
"He's pinged it towards the postage stamp." "The Hand of God weaves his way around four defenders and cracks it goalbound." "The skipper has been pole-axed in the box. He does the honours and converts from twelve yards." Brilliant! There are thousands of them. I'm sure commentators just make them up on the spot half the time. if you want to hear a cracker try this... **Relato de Victor Hugo Morales** ...la va a tocar para Diego, ahi la tiene Maradona, lo marcan dos, pisa la pelota Maradona, arranca por la derecha el genio del futbol mundial, y deja el tercero y va a tocar para Burruchaga... Siempre Maradona! Genio! Genio! Genio! ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta... y Goooooool... Gooooool... Quiero llorar! Dios santo! Viva el futbol! Golazo! Diego! Maradona! Es para llorar perdonenme... Maradona, en una corrida memorable, en la jugada de todos los tiempos... barrilete cosmico... de que planeta viniste? Para dejar en el camino tanto ingles, para que el pais sea un puno apretado, gritando por Argentina.... Argentina 2 - Inglaterra 0... Diegol, Diegol, Diego Armando Maradona... Gracias dios, por el futbol, por Maradona, por estas lagrimas, por este Argentina 2 - Inglaterra 0... " I have the sound file too, so if anyone is interested just PM me. It's totally hilarious. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5840 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 6 of 8 17 July 2009 at 1:02pm | IP Logged | |||||
Yeah, "let's touch base" is awful! It took quite a while before I figured out exactly what it meant (English is not my native language). I think it's supposed to be generally positive expression though... But what's wrong with "Let's get together and catch up on xxxx" "Ballpark figure" is a useful expression, but how is it any better than "rough estimate" or something along those lines...? I actually have no idea what it refers to in the actual sport it's taken from, whatever that may be, but I've heard the expression so many times in meetings etc that I know what it means in corporate speak. In my company the usage of American sports terminology is especially silly and obvious, because two of the top directors are American. "Suddenly" all the British senior managers reporting directly to these Americans are speaking as if they grew up on the baseball pitch! Whereas in reality they probably don't know the first thing about it! I just find this extremely cheesy and it is extremely confusing for other European colleagues whose English may not be completely flawless. Just the other day a German collegue completely missed the point of a little lecture, due to all cheesy corporate expressions that were unnecessarily used. Some vicious people had the guts to laugh aloud at him, But I think the person speaking was in error for using silly expressions that are not accessible to all of the listeners. If they must use sports allegories, they should at least use sports which people know about! Personally I sometimes feel like using allegories to cooking or shopping but sadly this would undermine my "professional" image, so I refrain... Erm, enough ranting from me now! Edited by cordelia0507 on 17 July 2009 at 1:02pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| snovymgodom Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5727 days ago 136 posts - 149 votes Speaks: English*, Russian | Message 7 of 8 17 July 2009 at 6:38pm | IP Logged | |||||
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One of the most notorious sports allegories is the use of "bases" when referring to sexual intimacy. I don't know if it's just an American thing though.
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| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7158 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 8 of 8 17 July 2009 at 8:03pm | IP Logged | |||||
I get the sense that in order to stand out sports commentators like to do funny things with their native language. It's either to sound trendy or avoid repeating what they feel are play-by-play of actually dry occurrences. Among American sportcasters, it's common for them to say silly things like "He had game!" or "Those guys really came to play!" (both of which mean that the team or athlete in question performed very well). The sense of these expressions is comparable to saying "he meant business!". I've also found the association between military activity and sports to be inappropriate as it seems to diminish the seriousness of military combat by equating it with sporting activities which in the grand scheme of things are just games. Hyping sporting matches or competitions to the level of great battles seems pretentious. For example it's not uncommon for sportscasters and even athletes to refer to some experienced player as a "warrior" and when talking about his or her steadfast character in elimination series (i.e. playoffs) one can hear something like "in the playoffs, we go to war with him." I also agree with cordelia about the pervasiveness of sports-jargon or athletic metaphors in business. To me they can sound awful and tend to get overused by managerial types. There's the overused "moving the goalposts" (when referring to a change in the operating environment or rules) along with "take a page out of someone else's playbook" (when referring to copying elements of another party's strategy). 1 person has voted this message useful |
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