[Ads-l] Online Sports Dictionary or Thesaurus Question

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

It sounds like the researcher is trying to construct a collection of
search phrases. Here are some suggestions for this task.

Wikipedia has a small collection of sports idioms. The researcher can
scan the list to find candidates for search terms. Some of these
sports idioms are dead/frozen metaphors; hence, the researcher must
decide which idioms have enough life to include in their list of
analogies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sports_idioms

Here is a very small list of fifteen items.

A handy guide to common sports metaphors
https://www.prdaily.com/a-handy-guide-to-common-sports-metaphors/

Below is the name of a book that seems to be pertinent. This book is
available via the internet archive, and the internet archive is
currently in emergency mode with no wait lists. The researcher will
need to read through the book and extract pertinent phrases.

Title: Sports Talk: A Dictionary of Sports Metaphors
Authors:  Robert Palmatier and Harold Ray (Author)

[Begin description]
An alphabetical listing of more than 1,700 metaphors from a wide
variety of sports, games, and amusements. Each entry gives a
definition, an example of proper usage, the metaphor's source
(sometimes probable), and the date of origin if known. Metaphors have
been painstakingly gathered from such varied sources as books,
periodicals, and newspapers as well as radio and television and even
speeches, interviews, and conversations.
[End description]

For example, I examined a few pages of the book and found some items
that seem to be germane. If these items are not germane then I do not
fully understand the researcher's task.

Fade in the stretch
First out of the blocks
Four-flusher
Game of inches

Below is another book that may be pertinent. I do not think that this
book is in the internet archive. There is a Kindle version available
via Amazon. The researcher can look at the preview to see whether the
contents are relevant. It will be necessary to read the book and
extract relevant phrases.

Title: The Field Guide to Sports Metaphors: A Compendium of
Competitive Words and Idioms Hardcover
Author: Josh Chetwynd

Garson

On Wed, Apr 1, 2020 at 10:59 AM Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu> wrote:
>
> I am trying to help a law student who wants to search for sports analogies in judicial opinions relating to antitrust law.  Can anyone suggest to me websites that provide dictionary or thesaurus information on sports words and phrases ?  What would be ideal would be a general online dictionary or thesaurus that categorizes words and phrases, with categories including "Sports" or "Baseball" or "Football" or "Basketball" or "Boxing," or an online dictionary or thesaurus exclusively devoted to sports or specific sports.  A smaller dictionary or thesaurus would be better than a larger one, as a larger one might have thousands of terms that would be too time-consuming to deal with.
>
> Fred Shapiro
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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