filthy

[Charles C Doyle]

A precursor to "filthy," "nasty" is fairly standard as an adjective applied to sliders/curveballs.

--Charlie

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From: American Dialect Society [ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] on behalf of Laurence Horn [laurence.horn at YALE.EDU]
Sent: Friday, October 26, 2012 12:34 AM
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On Oct 26, 2012, at 12:00 AM, Alice Faber wrote:

> On 10/25/12 11:14 PM, Victor Steinbok wrote:
>> Commentary from the WS broadcast, on Romo's strike-out pitch: "That
>> pitch is just filthy!" Yet another migration into positive territory.
>
>
> I've heard that usage for years.

Same here.  I just tried googling "filthy slider" and got a bunch of results, including one describing Brad Lidge's out pitch, and that was ages ago--or at least six or seven years, before he fell off the map.  There are a few hits from google books, including one from Chad Harbach's _The Art of Fielding_ (discussed on an earlier thread, for that "not not not crazy" young woman).  I think the collocation with "filthy slider" is more common than, say, "filthy fastball" or "filthy two-seamer", although those pitches are well attested on google as well.

LH

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