FW: Air-Ball, Slam-Dunk

[Frank Abate]

It's important to know that Chick Hearn popularized them.  My guess (only a
guess) is that these and other b-ball terms were born on the outdoor courts.
There is a strong tradition of terms used of and about b-ball by the players
themselves, in pick-up games.  Back in the day when I played, a few that I
remember and had not, at the time, heard before:

my bad -- 'that defensive breakdown/turnover was my fault' (previously
discussed on ADS-L)

you wanna run? -- 'do you want to play?'; said to someone not in the game
but who is watching and ready to play, when a team needs another player to
make five (usually) for a pick-up game

let's run! -- 'let's fast break'; said when a defensive rebound has just
been taken and the situation looks right for a fast break

good look OR nice look -- 'that was a well-conceived pass'; said when
someone makes a good/difficult/imaginative pass to a teammate, whether a
score results or not

check -- 'I want to check the ball before you inbound it'; in pick-up games
there are no refs, so the team without the ball controls the start of play
on inbound passes by asking to check the ball; the defensive player gets the
ball from the offensive guy who is about to throw it in and holds the ball
until his team is set up on defense

. . . and a nonverbal one -- after a player has made a nice basket that came
about because of a nice pass from a teammate, the player who just scored the
basket often will point at the player who passed the ball to him as an
acknowledgment of the fact that the basket would not have happened without
the passer seeing the scorer and then getting the ball to him in time and in
stride

Frank Abate


-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf
Of Laurence Horn
Sent: Friday, August 23, 2002 10:05 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: Air-Ball, Slam-Dunk


At 7:10 AM -0400 8/23/02, Rick H Kennerly wrote:
>In passing, news obit attributes them to Francis (Chick) Hearn, who was the
>LA Lakers basketball team play-by-play announcer for over 40 years
>(beginning in the 1960 when they were in Minnesota).
>
Some did; a bunch of others (most of the stories and obits I read)
just credit him with "popularizing" the terms, which is surely
correct.  I don't know what the evidence would be for his inventing
the terms, and I suspect the popularization claim is more on target.

Larry