[Ads-l] Idle curiosity

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Mon Jul 13 00:57:31 UTC 2015


> On Jul 12, 2015, at 7:48 PM, victor steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> It's not really sports context, except in the most superficial sense.
> 
> The underlying phrase is "That's clutch!" in the sense similar to "That's
> cool!". That's not the same meaning that's in sports context, unless I'm
> completely misinterpreted the expression.

If you have, I've done so as well, as noted earlier.  I hadn't been familiar with "That's clutch" (or "X is clutch") in contexts unrelated to good performance in stressful and/or game-meaningful situations, but "that's cool" (or even "that's good") seems consistent with the example upthread.  I took the use in the ESPNapp commercial to allude to a semantic change along the lines of 'well-performing in crucial situations' > 'well-performing (generally)', helped along by the familiarity of ad consumers with the sports context.  

LH
> 
> VS-)
> 
> On 12:11pm, Sun, Jul 12, 2015 Dan Goncharoff <thegonch at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> Clutch as an adjective in the context of sports is new??
> 
> DanG
> 
> On Sun, Jul 12, 2015 at 8:26 AM, Arnold Zwicky <arnold.zwicky at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> 
> 
>> 
>> 
>> =E2=80=9Cclutch=E2=80=9D is new to me.
>> 
>> on =E2=80=9Cdoxx=E2=80=9D, on my blog:
>> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__arnoldzwicky.org_2014_10_26_doxxing_&d=AwIBaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=wFp3X4Mu39hB2bf13gtz0ZpW1TsSxPIWYiZRsMFFaLQ&m=Zc5k-lGDuYkKGushtQVgc56ku4gxmLDWivSB4eydfcg&s=zSU0awhZMn7a1DqWn7LwMk7NdCX5oNZlTodc9ZySBfA&e= 
>> 
>> on the nouning =E2=80=9Cspend=E2=80=9D, on my blog:
>> =
>> 
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__arnoldzwicky.wordpress.com_2012_08_23_annals-2Dof-2Dnouning-2Dand-2Dpeeving-3D&d=AwIBaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=wFp3X4Mu39hB2bf13gtz0ZpW1TsSxPIWYiZRsMFFaLQ&m=Zc5k-lGDuYkKGushtQVgc56ku4gxmLDWivSB4eydfcg&s=ao64RTUlbDU7mefGcs0C65G76jebjU0ojRPW1NghuyA&e= 
>> /
>> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.americandialect.org&d=AwIBaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=wFp3X4Mu39hB2bf13gtz0ZpW1TsSxPIWYiZRsMFFaLQ&m=Zc5k-lGDuYkKGushtQVgc56ku4gxmLDWivSB4eydfcg&s=BsI6zBUX3gSqkaQZ_UrVJgrJA91f0McEAKjq2RBl8VM&e= 

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