Skin In The Gane

[Marc Sacks]

> I am not really interested in sports, and I make no attempt to keep
> current
> on sports terms or clichés. But I have noticed with some alarm (!) a
> creeping increase, over the past couple of decades, in the number of
> sports
> terms, FAR too often unexplained, or self-evident, sneaking into 'general
> speak' -- the way most of us speak most of the time. 'Hat trick,' a term
> borrowed by hockey from soccer (where it actually _has_ a meaning), is a
> good example. 'Skin in the game' could be another.

I agree that these terms make no sense except to sports fans and that this
has been going on for a long time. "Full court press" is another example;
there was an administration (I forget whose: Bush I, maybe) that was fond
of it. "Hail Mary pass" is another.

It's not just sports, though. A few days ago I heard a radio talker
explain what "jump the shark" means and where it came from. It seems,
based on an episode of "Happy Days" where the Fonz jumps over a shark as a
publicity stunt, to mean "to begin a decline" (referring to the show, not
the Fonz). Given the meanings of jump and shark, I had no way of knowing
this before; I assumed it referred to a rash bit of derring-do, like Evel
Knievel's jumps over motorcyles. Silly pop-uncultured me.

Marc Sacks
msacks at theworld.com

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