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eBook Edition
- 978-1-5255-0154-8
- epub, mobi, pdf files
- Keywords
- English language,
- Sports terms,
- Expressions,
- Sports history,
- Etymology,
- Humour,
- Word origins
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Sports Talk
How It Has Penetrated Our Everyday Language
by
Colin McNairn
It’s game on in uncovering the many sports-inspired terms, expressions, sayings and images that populate our everyday language! That’s the challenge that this book takes on, using a playbook for each sport. It kicks off with an opening run through the game of football, then it’s out of the gate with wire-to-wire coverage of horse racing. After going for the fences and covering all the bases in the sport of baseball, the ball is kept rolling, despite many a sticky wicket, through the long-running game of cricket. A blow-by-blow account of the sweet science of boxing is followed by play-by-play accounts of 35 more sports that have been added to the roster. At the finish line, the top three sports, are scored on their relative contributions to everyday language, and declared win, place and show. The discussion is enlivened by lots of sports humour and anecdotes along with quotations from sports personalities some of which may sound quite familiar, much like déjà vu all over again.
It is surprising how many words and phrases that have their origin in sport have crept into our everyday language. In this book, Colin McNairn has captured the essence of how these words and phrases have connected with us and have meaning in our day-to-day conversation. This is a book of interest to sports buffs, young and old, and all those who are intrigued by language development. - Russ Jackson, Member of the Canadian Football Hall of Fame and the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame
Colin McNairn played varsity football in his university days. Upon hanging up his cleats, he embarked on a career as a law professor, a practising lawyer, an adjudicator and an author. He made his debut as a writer on language with the publication in 2015 of In A Manner Of Speaking, a book about expressions and sayings and how we use them. He lives in Toronto, Ontario with his wife Marian.
Contributors
- Author
- Colin McNairn
What People are Saying
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