manning up!

[Herb Stahlke]

There is a soccer usage, "Man on!" to warn a team mate of coverage.
I've heard it used by my daughter's women's varsity soccer team as
well.

Herb

On Sat, Sep 4, 2010 at 7:24 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      manning up!
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Nice "On Language" column from Ben in the Times on the above locution:
> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/05/magazine/05FOB-onlanguage-t.html
>
> I agree that the K-Rod case at the start of the piece involves the
> same machismatic "man up" that occurs in the various commercials, and
> I like Ben's take on why it's the light beer commercials that are the
> most likely site:
>
> ===========
> "Man up, because if you're drinking a light beer without great
> pilsner taste, you're missing the point of drinking beer." (Light
> beer ads often amp up the masculinity, perhaps to compensate for
> their watered-down product.)
> ===========
>
> --except that I'd argue further that if you're drinking a light beer
> at all, you're missing the point of drinking beer.  And I was
> interested in Mike Timlin's involvement in the "Cowboy Up" campaign
> on the Red Sox during the summer of '03, which I'd always associated
> with Kevin Millar and only Kevin Millar.  (No relation to Miller
> Lite.)
>
> But it might be worth noting that the occurrence in football contexts
> like the one Ben cites from the Texas high school coach, ""We're
> expecting them to use an eight-man front with their secondary manning
> up on us", is used specifically to contrast that option of going
> man-to-man with the alternative possibility of a zone defense, and in
> this sense a similar locution has been used for quite a while in
> basketball contexts. (There are other variants, like a box-and-one,
> but primarily you play the guy (male or female) or you're responsible
> for a sector of the field or court.)
>
> Does anyone know whether the football or basketball usage came first?
> I'd have guessed basketball, but it's only a guess.
>
> LH
>
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