Sporting cliches

captainbrass

I remember someone suggested a while ago we try and do some sports threads, and I thought this would be a fairly accessible subject for non-fans.

Basically, this is all about posting your favourite of the many cliches that commentators and pundits on sports programmes (as well as sportspeople themselves) use, often to hide that they don't know any more about what's going on than the viewers back home. Every sport gets this, although team sports seem particularly prone to the stupid. A few examples (from English soccer) -

"I'm over the moon" (in response to success) and "I'm sick as a parrot" (in response to losing) were used so much in post-match interviews in the 70s that they ended up, thankfully, being laughed out of existence except as jokes. Footballers will still often say "I'm gutted" in response to defeat, though.

"At this stage in the game, it's no more than a fresh pair of legs" (as a player is substituted in the last minutes of the game). Summons up horror movie images of the player running on minus their head, arms and torso.

"That's naive defending." A catchphrase of Alan Hansen, a Scottish pundit, that's become a cliche in its own right. Does not mean said defenders are out there painting brightly coloured and child-like paintings.

When the English national team loses, they will invariably either be criticised for "schoolboy errors" or be said to have "reverted to the long-ball game" (i.e. players kicking the ball towards the other goal and running after it, as opposed to passing to other players). If it's really bad they will be said to have "lacked passion/pride".

 

Gelzo

Hah. Neat topic.

I don't follow sports, but I'm damn sure most of those don't apply to U.S. commentary.

I think "You hate to see that." might count.

LouieW

• "He's a scrappy player": A phrase that I believe is pretty meaningless that baseball commentators often use to refer to players they like. Some say that it mostly means "small, white, and terrible at baseball," but I think that might be a bit too harsh.

 

• "He's/she's got big upside": Something that comes up a lot in sports drafts and from what I can tell just translates to "that person might possibly be good in [sports league]."

 

• "It is what it is": A tautological phrase often used as a response to a reporter's question about what has happened, is happening, or will happen in a game. I have to give athletes some credit there because sometimes they do get asked some rather weird and/or repetitive questions.

 

• "it's just [Name] being [Name]": Another tautology used to explain someone's behavior.

 

• "He's/she's a winner": A way to justify why a player is good and/or better than enough solely by virtue of winning, sometimes if not often regardless of how they actually play relative to other people at their position. Granted, this is sometimes a legitimate quality when a player is good at leading, but not necessarily as physically gifted as his or her teammates. Still, it bugs me from time to time when people use it to argue that one pitcher is better than another because he has more wins despite actually giving up more runs, hits, and walks per game than the other pitcher.

As for commentators during the game, American commentators do seem to say the "lacked passion/pride" line that captainbrass mentioned from time to time. I do not have much more to add, but this site has some more American sports cliches.

Evergreen

Because I first heard it in a humorous context, I now find the phrase "Put the team on his/my/their/one's/whatever back" to be inherently amusing. Not sure if that's another cliche like we're talking about here.

captainbrass

"It is what it is" and "it's just [Name] being [Name]" sound very like "haters gonna hate" and its many variants, as used here (and everywhere else on the Internet). I think they could all be translated - "What do you expect me to do about it?"

The idea of being "a winner" seems to come up in a lot of sports and other contexts. It usually means - "He/she is successful. I don't really know why." The failure of analysis annoys me - there's always a reason(s) for success.