Even people who have absolutely no interest in watching or playing sport may use sporting terms in their general everyday speech and writing without realising it. It is also the case that some of these usages cross cultural divides even when the sports in question do not.
Baseball
Baseball is a sport that belongs mainly to the continent of North America. Although it is played elsewhere, it does not occupy anything like as central a place in the cultural realm of, say, the United Kingdom as it does the United States.
When you start a new enterprise, such as in business, you are always pleased to reach “first base”, and if you succeed at the first attempt you may achieve a “home run”. However, somebody may throw you a “curveball” at some stage.
The term “struck out” is often used to mean a situation in which someone has failed, but this is a bit ambiguous, because the word “strike” means to hit something, and a strike in baseball means precisely the opposite.
Cricket
<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hayden_and_Dhoni.jpg" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Source</a>
To a speaker of English in the cricket-playing world, the language is full of “cricketisms”, although only a few of them have become regulars in non-cricketing countries such as the United States.
At the outset, there is the expression “it’s not cricket”, meaning that something is not fair or there is sharp practice going on. This shows the Englishman’s enduring conviction that cricket is a game for gentlemen who would never dream of cheating!
If you cannot solve a problem you may be “stumped”, possibly because the problem was something of a “googly” being delivered on a “sticky wicket”. However, if you do find a solution you may be able to “hit it for six”.
Golf
<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lee_Westwood_bunker.jpg" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Source</a>
The words borrowed from golf seem to bear a similar pattern to those from cricket, as you can be “stymied”, “bunkered” or “hit into the long grass” in real life just as often as on the golf course. However, it is always satisfying to score a “hole in one” in any field of life, and to reward yourself with a drink at the “19th hole”.
Tennis
A tennis racket can be “highly strung”, as can its owner!
It is not often realised that the word “penthouse” comes from tennis, it being the structure with a sloping roof that runs round three sides of the court in “real tennis”, the game that bears more resemblance to modern squash than to lawn tennis.
And I suppose that the phrase “you cannot be serious” would be heard far less frequently had John McEnroe not used it to such great effect when playing at Wimbledon in 1981!
Football
<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scrum_ASM_Clermont-Saracens.jpg" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Source</a>
Most of the familiar “sporting” words that are relevant to all codes of football cannot be said to owe their origin to the game, as they derive from ordinary language and have been assimilated into the sport, such as “goal”, “try”,“tackle” and “kick off”. However, some words and phrases do appear to have moved the other way, such as “scrum”, “kicked into touch” and “taken a dive”.
General
The above has only been a cursory glance at a few word and phrase derivations from a small number of sports, although there are also some that apply across a whole range of sporting endeavour. There are “referees” and “umpires” for all sorts of non-sporting activities. We all want to compete on a “level playing field”, from the “starting pistol/gun” to the “chequered flag”.
Thank you for taking a little “time out” to read this piece! Can you suggest some more?
wow Very interesting photo!!!!!!! teams
Archery and shooting sports use it, and also on a dartboard.
Archery and shooting sports use it, and also on a dartboard.
What about the term “hitting the bulls eye” indexer?
Yes – that should be on the list.
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Pictures were awesome.
Interesting post even though I don’t follow sports like that.
I remember one bowling term used in New Orleans which was “drive by” when a bowling ball missed a pin by a close margin.
That strikes me as an expression that has gone the other way. I don’t suppose that the term “drive by shooting” derived from bowling.
The league I used to bowl in New Orleans before Hurricane Katrina destroyed the Sugar Bowl Lanes was mostly Black males and females.
So Deepizzaguy, could it be that “drive by” was not an original bowling terminology but the African American players importing the it into bowling?
Yes it was since the bowling alley was located in New Orleans and most of the bowlers live in the New Orleans area which is represented by a majority of Black people. It shocked me to say it mildly since I Latin and White.
Ok! That’s a new learning for me.
Many sports include the “just in the nick of time” concept of a buzzer beater. Sometimes from basketball when something is really easy its a slam dunk!
But “in the nick of time” is not itself a phrase from sport, although “slam dunk” is.
in the nick of time is the common phrase, in sports we call it a buzzer beater, the two are the same. Sorry I was confusing earlier!
OK – I haven’t heard “buzzer beater” before, either in sport or elsewhere!
It is a huge basketball term
Very nice. I’ll have to give this a coat of thought, but I need more tea first 🙂
How about basketball?
How about it? I suppose that “slam dunk” might count as an expression in more general usage – can you suggest any more?
Nice one,