BOOKS

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 origins in sport have crept into our everyday language. In this book, Colin McNairn has captured the essence of how those 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 Sports Hall of Fame and the Canada's Sports Hall of Fame.

What do “the whole kit and caboodle,” “the whole shebang,” “the whole megillah,” “the whole enchilada,” “the whole nine yards,” “the whole box and dice,” and “the full Monty” have in common? They’re all expressions that mean “the entire quantity,” and they’re all examples of the breadth and depth of the English-speaking world’s vocabulary.

From the multitude of words and phrases in daily use, the author of this delightful exploration into what we say and why we say it zeroes in on those expressions and sayings and their variations that are funny, quirky, just plain folksy, or playfully dressed up in rhyme or alliteration. Some may have become clichés that, as it’s said with “tongue in cheek,” should be “avoided like the plague.” Others have been distorted, deemed politically incorrect, or shrouded in mystery and must bear some explanation.

Among the topics the author delves into are expressions that shouldn’t be taken literally (“dressed to kill” and “kick the bucket”), foreign expressions that have crept into English (“carte blanche,” “carpe diem,” and “que sera, sera”), phrases borrowed from print ads and TV commercials (“where there’s life, there’s Bud” and “where the rubber meets the road”), animal images (“a barrel of monkeys” and “chasing your tail”), and food and drink (“cast your bread upon the water,” “chew the fat,” “bottom’s up!”, and “drink as a lord”).

Here’s a book for everyone who delights in the mysteries of language and the perfect gift for all the “wordies” in your life.

McNairn's writing is fun, inviting, and easy to read. His tone is sometimes wry, sometimes zesty. His explanation of technical terms is clear. His organization is associative and well-paced.

-- John Kelly, Managing Editor, Dictionary.com