"knocking on the door"

[Charles Doyle]

Although my hasty search of dictionaries (including, of course, HDAS) failed to find it, sportscasters at least as far back as the 1970s have made prominent use of the idiom "knocking on the door," usually in that participial form.   It describes a football team as its offense, through a series of plays, gains proximity to the goal line.  A cursory Google search suggests that the expression has acquired a wider range of applicability.

This past Sunday I was surprised to hear the TV commentator for one of the NFL games alter the idiom to "knocking on the doorstep."  Lo and behold, Google gives 1160 instances of that phrase (plus another 678 with the spelling "door step").

--Charlie

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org