One of the most fascinating aspects of language use is the way in which different areas of human activity produce their own specialised language. I’m referring here not so much to the specialist terminology that is needed to convey precise concepts in, say, computing, ornithology or cricket, but rather to the ways in which everyday language is stretched, bent and otherwise put through its paces in order to express knowledge and enthusiasm about a particular subject. It seems that when talking or writing about something we are passionate or know a lot about, we like to reach beyond our everyday means of expression and use language peculiar to the subject at hand. At its worst, this can descend into jargon and cliché, but it can also lead to creative and entertaining use of language.

An area of human activity that arouses great passions in both participants and spectators is sport, so it is not surprising that this field should have given rise to a rich variety of terms and expressions. The language used to talk about sport, along with a good sprinkling of specialist terminology, is the subject of Andrew Delahunty’s Talking Balls, subtitled A Guide to the Language of Sport. The author confesses in the introduction that, when watching a sporting event, his attention is often distracted from the unfolding drama by a particular expression uttered by a player or commentator. Such moments of distraction, and the subsequent discussions and investigations, have led to this entertaining book.

The book is arranged alphabetically, which means that if you simply want to find out what a doosra is and how it differs from a googly, or to clarify whether an eagle is better or worse than an albatross, you can do so quickly and easily. Anyone who has ever wondered what it means to say that a footballer has an educated left foot or a boxer a glass chin need wonder no more. There are good explanations of familiar sporting metaphors, such as level playing field, move the goalposts and hit the wall, as well as (to me) less familiar expressions such as ducks on the pond, dime defense, and run and gun (from baseball, American football and basketball respectively). There are full-page articles on aspects of sporting language like rhyme, tenses, metaphors and idioms, as well as post-match interviews and the art of the sports headline in tabloid newspapers.

Some of the most entertaining entries relate to sporting catchphrases, those records of moments when a player or commentator uttered a phrase which somehow caught the public imagination and is forever after associated with them. Such phrases include former England manager Graham Taylor’s muttered exclamation 'Do I not like that', during his team’s failed attempt to qualify for the 1994 World Cup, as well as the fiery John McEnroe’s cry of 'You cannot be serious!' when a serve was wrongly called out. Perhaps the most enjoyable way to use the book, however, is to browse randomly through it. It was thus that I discovered that American sports commentators break the accepted rules of grammar by speaking of winningest and losingest teams. As McEnroe himself might have put it: You cannot be serious!

Talking Balls
Andrew Delahunty
Weidenfeld and Nicolson
2006
ISBN 0-304-36818-0