Sports Talk
How It Has Penetrated Our Everyday Language
by Colin McNairn

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It’s “game on” in uncovering the many sports-inspired terms, expressions and sayings that populate our everyday language! That’s the challenge that this book takes on, using a “playbook” for each sport. 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. In due course, football “kicks off” with continuing commentary from the author as "armchair quarterback,” after which it’s “out of the gate” with “wire-to-wire” coverage of horse racing. Finally, a “blow-by-blow account” of the sweet science of boxing is followed by “play-by-play accounts” of more than 35 other sports that have been added to the game-day lineup. The discussion is enlivened by lots of sports humour and anecdotes along with quotations from sports personalities. Many of the words from those who are sportingly wise may sound quite familiar, much like “déjà vu all over again.”.

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Colin McNairn played varsity football and intramural hockey in his university days. Upon hanging up his cleats and his blades, he embarked on a professional career, serving successively as a university 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 they’re used and misused. He lives in Waterloo, Ontario with his wife Marian. www.colinmcnairn.com

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Colin McNairn