[Ads-l] Crooked number

[Laurence Horn]

Around for a while, but I don’t know how long a while either.  Often in the form “put up a crooked number”, with “on the (score)board” understood. Presumably 8 counts a crooked even though 0 doesn’t.  

LH


> On Jun 28, 2021, at 8:14 AM, victor steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> I'm sure this predates me by several decades but I'm increasingly noticing
> "crooked number" in baseball slang. In particular, the full expression is
> "put a crooked number on the board", but abbreviated versions exist as
> well. Here, the crooked number is 4.
> 
> https://nypost.com/2021/06/27/yankees-gerrit-cole-ambushed-by-red-sox/
> That crooked number was hard for us to overcome.
> 
> 
> VS-)
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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