filthy

[George Thompson]

LH writes: ""filthy knuckler" (with reference to R. A. Dickey) is not
unattested, but I admit there aren't quite as maybe as might have been
predicted."

There are also far fewer pitchers who throw a knuckleball than ones who
throw a slider.  Part of the attention that Dickey's been getting is due to
his position as the only (?) knuckleball pitcher in the majors right now.
(Or one of very few.)

On a related note, from today's NYTimes:
Bennett said: “I’ve hung out at Jerry’s house and talked with him, just me
and him. His house is pretty sick."  NYTimes, October 26, 2012, Section B,
p. 13, col. 5, from a story headlined "Two Giants Explain the Differences
With Dallas."

The speaker is Martellus Bennett, who formerly played for Dallas and is now
with the Giants.  Jerry is Jerry Jones, owner of the Dallas Cowboys.  I
believe Bennett is using "sick" in its Pickwickian sense.

Opps, sorry, folks -- that's the English Major breaking out again.  I knapp
it on the head with a stick and cry "Down, wanton, down", but I can't get
rid of it.  Anyway, Bennett is using "sick" in a positive sense, which I
have come upon before in sports chatter.

GAT


On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 at 1:16 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>wrote:

> On Oct 26, 2012, at 12:54 PM, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>
> > At 10/26/2012 08:45 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> >> Isn't a slider "filthy" because it's specifically sneaky or tricky
> rather
> >> than broadly "cool" or "sweet"?
> >
> > Wouldn't one then expect to find "filthy knuckleball"?  They're
> > sneakier than sliders, particularly to catchers.  And with the
> > current notoriety of perhaps the last of the knuckleballers -- Tim
> > Wakefield, who retired this year as the then-current oldest active
> > player in the major leagues; and R. A. Dickey of the Mets, who led
> > the National League in strikeouts and won 20 games.
> >
> > But Google gives me only 113 hits for "filthy knuckleball" and GBooks
> none.
> >
> > Joel
>
> As mentioned, "filthy knuckler" (with reference to R. A. Dickey) is not
> unattested, but I admit there aren't quite as maybe as might have been
> predicted.  Perhaps knucklers are frustrating to hit, which isn't quite the
> same as those cut fastballs and hard sliders, and perhaps part of that is
> that the latter fool you by looking like what they're not (especially if
> they're fast enough) while the former don't look like anything else,
> including the knuckler thrown the pitch before.  Filthy change-ups
> apparently proliferate; they are supposed to fool the batter by starting
> out like a fastball.
>
> LH
>
>
>
> LH
> >
> >
> >> JL
> >>
> >> On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 at 2:16 AM, Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com
> >wrote:
> >>
> >> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> >> > -----------------------
> >> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> >> > Poster:       Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at GMAIL.COM>
> >> > Subject:      Re: filthy
> >> >
> >> >
> >>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >> >
> >> > I've heard it too, but 1) not in baseball (I don't follow baseball,
> >> > generally, and only watched the last inning today); 2) it's not
> >> > documented. I'm not claiming primacy in any way, but the usage should
> be
> >> > on the record. As for (1), think of the emotionally positive use of
> >> > "filthy rich".
> >> >
> >> >      VS-)
> >> >
> >> > On 10/26/2012 12:34 AM, Laurence Horn wrote:
> >> > > On Oct 26, 2012, at 12:00 AM, Alice Faber wrote:
> >> > >
> >> > >> On 10/25/12 11:14 PM, Victor Steinbok wrote:
> >> > >>> Commentary from the WS broadcast, on Romo's strike-out pitch:
> "That
> >> > >>> pitch is just filthy!" Yet another migration into positive
> territory.
> >> > >>
> >> > >> I've heard that usage for years.
> >> > > Same here.  I just tried googling "filthy slider" and got a bunch of
> >> > results, including one describing Brad Lidge's out pitch, and that
> was ages
> >> > ago--or at least six or seven years, before he fell off the map.
>  There are
> >> > a few hits from google books, including one from Chad Harbach's _The
> Art of
> >> > Fielding_ (discussed on an earlier thread, for that "not not not
> crazy"
> >> > young woman).  I think the collocation with "filthy slider" is more
> common
> >> > than, say, "filthy fastball" or "filthy two-seamer", although those
> pitches
> >> > are well attested on google as well.
> >> > >
> >> > > LH
> >> > >
> >> > >> Unfortunately, Google Advanced Search
> >> > >> doesn't seem to have a way to limit a search to a date range,
> making it
> >> > >> hard to present actual evidence!
> >> >
> >> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> >> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >> >
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> truth."
> >>
> >> ------------------------------------------------------------
> >> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



-- 
George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much since then.

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