Phrases You Learned From Football Commentaries

[Satchmo Distel]

Annoying, 'it's a big ask' is one that I have started using and wish I hadn't. 'Early doors' too.

'Aplomb' seems to have been imported from ballet, where it was popularized by Jean-Étienne Despréaux* ["C18: from French: rectitude, uprightness, from à plomb according to the plumb line, vertically"].

*Wiki ref: Mes passe-temps : chansons, suivies de l'Art de la danse, poème en quatre chants, calqué sur l'Art poétique de Boileau Despréaux, Paris, Defrelle, Petit, 1806, 2 vol. ; 2e éd. Paris, l'Auteur, Petit, 1807 ; 3e éd. Paris, Crapelet, 1809.

[Mr Cogito]

Way back when, dour but competitive teams from Eastern Europe were always referred to with the adjective "crack", usually misused, implying either drug taking, sneaky fitness regimes, or other nefarious communist malfeasance, and thus taking on its own special football usage. That twat Jonathan Pearce loved to use it when he started off in commentary (along with many other cliches and national stereotypes).

I hadn't heard it said for ages until last night, when it popped up in Ken Burn's Vietnam doc series, with a reference to a "crack South Vietnamese army unit". Correct usage but sounded odd after its football-speak appropriation.

[CY_Boaby]

The Tour de France starts tonight and the SBS commentators always refer to Tony Martin as "the big German". I don't think I've ever heard of a German sportsman/woman referred to as normal-sized or even small.

[shackleford]

Way back when, dour but competitive teams from Eastern Europe were always referred to with the adjective "crack", usually misused, implying either drug taking, sneaky fitness regimes, or other nefarious communist malfeasance, and thus taking on its own special football usage. That twat Jonathan Pearce loved to use it when he started off in commentary (along with many other cliches and national stereotypes).

I hadn't heard it said for ages until last night, when it popped up in Ken Burn's Vietnam doc series, with a reference to a "crack South Vietnamese army unit". Correct usage but sounded odd after its football-speak appropriation.

I love the "crack" descriptor which has surely passed into parody now, in football anyway. And you are right, there is definitely a military application as well - the intro to A-Team ran "Ten years ago a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn't commit...."

[Guy Profumo]

I love the "crack" descriptor which has surely passed into parody now, in football anyway. And you are right, there is definitely a military application as well - the intro to A-Team ran "Ten years ago a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn't commit...."

Didn't it transpire in the last (double?) episode they actually had committed a crime?


i.e. robbing a bank in Hanoi?

[DCI Harry Batt]

How is the "in and around" thing used?

[Various Artist]

How is the "in and around" thing used?

To quote myself from the aforementioned OTF Dictionary thread:

OTF Football Dictionary

A corollary to Hot Orange's definition:
In and Around

1. (of an area) In. "He's got to find contact (q.v.) in and around the box to win (q.v.) a penalty."
2. (of a player) Around. "He's got to get himself in and around Fellaini to keep him quiet, Clive."

[DCI Harry Batt]

Oh right. Thanks.

That (1) there seems like just adding words to add no meaning. Actually, it removes meaning, doesn't it? (2) is a pretty awkward mangling of the same thing. I'm reluctant to give either the status of "phrase".

[Kowalski]

"Finished with a plomb, sure as eggs as eggs, mantle with a plomb isn't it?"

[Various Artist]

Oh right. Thanks.

That (1) there seems like just adding words to add no meaning. Actually, it removes meaning, doesn't it? (2) is a pretty awkward mangling of the same thing. I'm reluctant to give either the status of "phrase".

Yes, exactly right. I perhaps slightly exaggerated for effect in that 'dictionary' entry, above, but only slightly. It's a perfectly legitimate phrase when used correctly, but there became a time not long ago where it seemed to get deployed with incautious abandon by certain football commentators and summarisers (Andy Townsend was always the obvious example) to no real effect, any more than inserting "At the end of the day" in a sentence helps with any nuance. Enough that I've certainly heard it used in precisely such an illogical fashion, when such unthinking repetition extended to situations where it was clearly one or the other – thus making the sentence less meaningful as in (1) above, or ludicrous as in (2), where it really tips over into the realms of particular pointlessness.

[Patrick Thistle]

I love the "crack" descriptor which has surely passed into parody now, in football anyway. And you are right, there is definitely a military application as well - the intro to A-Team ran "Ten years ago a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn't commit...."

That's the usage that popped into my mind as well.

[elguapo4]

If it wasn't for commentators I'd never have known that you can do something "Too well" .

[Satchmo Distel]

Othello loved Desdemona "not wisely but too well."

[treibeis]

I don't think I've ever heard of a German sportsman/woman referred to as normal-sized or even small.

In German, one of Gerd Müller's nicknames was "kleines dickes Müller".

Thomas Häßler must have been described as a "diminutive midfielder" at some point.

[Satchmo Distel]

Yes, Littbarski also gets the diminutive label.

https://thesefootballtimes.co/2017/0...rious-anomaly/

More recently: Lahm, Gundogan and Kimmich.

[Tratorello]

Othello loved Desdemona "not wisely but too well."

"If anything Clive, for me, she's loved him too well"

[Guy Profumo]

"Tourneyment"

[DCI Harry Batt]

This wasn't the thread with the discussion of "crack"? I see one post up there, but there were more. Somewhere.

[pebblethefish]

This wasn't the thread with the discussion of "crack"? I see one post up there, but there were more. Somewhere.

VA linked to that thread on post 25 of this thread.

[DCI Harry Batt]

Ah yes. It's the otf way - never use one thread for an idea when you can use two.

[Satchmo Distel]

As the thread starter, I'd argue the purpose was different, namely to discuss phrases you learned through watching football rather than phrases that football misuses.

[pebblethefish]

I learnt both "ironically" and "incidentally" from John Motson.

[elguapo4]

I learnt both "ironically" and "incidentally" from John Motson.

The ironic thing about that post is I've never heard a commentator use "ironically " correctly, they always confuse it with coincidence.

[Satchmo Distel]

Alanis Mottyette

[DCI Harry Batt]

As the thread starter, I'd argue the purpose was different, namely to discuss phrases you learned through watching football rather than phrases that football misuses.

Oh yeah, it was inevitable that the same issues would come up on both mind. But thread it up, baby, I say.