[Lexicog] Re: Sports Sprachgef ühling

Tue Feb 24 11:49:15 UTC 2009

Oops..."litany," and as an afterthought to my explanation I didn't include any "allusions," which could go on forever acting "idiomatically," such as "Wayne Gretsky was the Babe Ruth of hockey."

Scott

--- On Tue, 2/24/09, Scott Nelson <bolstar1 at yahoo.com> wrote:

From: Scott Nelson <bolstar1 at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [Lexicog] Re: Sports Sprachgefühling
To: lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com
Cc: bolstar1 at yahoo.com
Date: Tuesday, February 24, 2009, 6:43 AM

Good points, Richard. I could have added a lot of technical, professionally- used expressions to the 
lists (165 baseball expressions alone), but I only focused on "athletic prowess" or high achievement
within sports as illustrations of sprachgefuhl. 
I don't collect single-word terms, but even doing phrases is a real challenge, because of the 
number of sports there are. My db is basically for conversational & professional expressions, with 
sports as one of 63+ social & professional fields (and dozens of grammatical fields), so I couldn't 
come up with the entire littany of sports' vernacular. 
Anyway, hope to see more of your observations or work. I added a few soccer expressions as 
an example of the types of phrasal terminology I collect. 
Scott Nelson

a hat trick -- three goals by one person 
(get) a yellow card -- get a warning by an offical 

approach work -- controlling the play to the point of ball being near the
the opposition's goal

break away (break loose) from the opposition -- (outmaneuver, get ahead of opposing 
players)

(can) really put one's foot into it -- (can) kick the ball very far

close (the opposition) down; close down (the opposition) -- to restrict the opposition 
from maneuvering

fast side/slow side -- from the point of view of the goalkeeper, the fast side is the 
shortest required distance the ball has to travel from the player to the net; the slow 
side is the longest distance to the net

(stay) in bounds; within bounds -- within the boundaries of the pitch 

(go) out of bounds -- outside the boundaries of the pitch 

on the carpet -- kicking the ball, rolling it on the pitch rather than flying it 
through the air

--- On Mon, 2/23/09, Richard Rhodes <rrhodes at berkeley. edu> wrote:

From: Richard Rhodes <rrhodes at berkeley. edu>
Subject: [Lexicog] Re: Sports Sprachgefühling
To: lexicographylist@ yahoogroups. com
Date: Monday, February 23, 2009, 10:11 PM

Scott,
        This is a nice list. And think you're categorizing it well. But at some point you need to divide it into true technical vocabulary used by the practitioners and the borrowings of those usages into or from the standard language. Take touch.
        In soccer, for example, touch has two specialized senses:
1) The phrase in(to) touch means out of bounds along the sidelines (probably because the next play is to throw the ball in, i.e., you can legally touch it with your hands).
2) Touch is a special case of pace. Pace is the amount of force you put on the ball when you kick it. It applies especially to passes. Touch is the amount of pace that gets the ball to its intended location quickly enough w.r.t. the game situation, but without so much pace that an appropriately skilled player has to work to control the ball on receiving it. In this sense it often occurs in the phrase with touch. It's easy to see the affinity of this usage with the standard language usage in a phrase like He has a light touch, which I suspect is not a sports metaphor at all.

Also

        ball sense is about reaction to the path of the ball
        ball skills are about abilities to make the ball do things

They aren't synonyms at all. (It looks like you mean that the way you wrote your first example.)

Rich

Hi, people: Speaking of sports-related sprachgefühl, I thought I'd add my two sense.
The following idioms/expressions are from my db of field-specific idioms. They represent some, but perhaps not all, of the possibilities of expressing sports superiority, and some are indeed not true idioms. I wrote before about the difficulty in classifying a particular idiom (non-literal) from a simpe expression or saying (literal). All that can be said is that idioms are a special type of expression/saying (a technical and immaterial difference to native-English speakers). The purpose here is to simply demonstrate the varieties of grammar and stylistics that American English speakers use to express `athletic prowess', with the current thread geared toward sprachgefühl, and athleticism/ sports being the field used to illustrate the concept.
The change in prepositions, noun numbers, auxilliaries are examples of the difficulty of mastering (sprachgefühl) , English or, any language for that matter (e.g. have an instinct for...something; play by instinct; play golf with (or by) his instincts || quick on the draw/quickest to the draw/sometimes `quickest on the draw' || He could (can do something) with one hand (arm) tied behind his back.; He could (can do something) with both hands tied behind his back.

I broke my list down into four categories:

SKILLS (based on experience)
Natural ABILITY (genetic)
PERFORMANCE & ACHEIVEMENT (demonstrated)
Instinctive Athletic MOTIVATION/DESIRE
ENTERTAINMENT Value (Popularity- Based)

1) Skills (based on experience)

(have) (good) ball sense/skill

have (get/develop) a feel for (something -- eg. kicking a soccer ball early in life.)
He has kicking field goals (it/something) down to a science.

Look ma, No hands!

He really stays on the ball.

He plays (works/calculates) (all) the angles.
Practice makes perfect.

His eye is trained (for something) (to do something).
He has a trained eye (for something) (to do something).

2) Natural ability (genetics)

He's athletically inclined.

He's a diamond in the rough.

He has a nice touch (on the green/bunting/ at the net, etc.).
(he has) a soft touch
(he has) a light touch
(he has) a/the golden touch
(he has) a (good) touch
(he has) the magic touch

He still has his touch.
He still has the (old) touch.
He's not lost his touch.

He's light-handed.

He plays by instinct.
He goes with his instinct.
He plays by his instinct/instincts

He plays by his guts.

He has razor-sharp eyesight.

He has reflexes like a cat. (cat-like reflexes)

It's his strong suit.

a born athlete
born to be an athlete
a natural athlete
a born winner
He takes to sports.
He takes to swimming (tennis, etc.) like a duck takes to water.

He's quick on the draw.
He's quickest to the draw.

He's the go-to guy (gal).
the go-to person

You can't beat a man at his own game.
3) Performance &Acheivement (demonstrated)

(an) all-American
an all-star (center/first baseman, etc.)
He's all-pro.
an all-pro football player (/basketball player, etc.)

No one can touch him.
You can't touch him.

He plays in a league of his own.
He's in his own league.
He plays in a different league.

a (very) hard act to follow
a tough act to follow
a difficult act to follow

a heavy hitter
a long-ball hitter

He's the odds-on favorite.
He won against all odds.

He can run circles around (someone).
He's a triple threat.
at the peak of (one's game/performance)
at/reach one's peak
He can do it (do something) blindfolded.

It ain't braggin' if you kin do it.
have (win/maintain/ claim/retain) bragging rights
He knows how to get it (things) done.

He can (do something) standing on his head.

He took top honors.

Pro-bowlers are the best of the best.

They brought in the heavy hitters.

He could (do something) with one hand (arm) tied behind his back.
He could (do something) with both hands tied behind his back.
with one arm tied behind one's back;
could do something with one hand tied behind one's back;
He could (can) (do something) with his eyes closed.
He can (do something) with the best of them.

4) Instinctive Motivation/Desire
go/went for the jugular
have a taste for the jugular
have an instinct for the jugular

He has a killer instinct.

He plays with reckless abandon.

5) Entertainment Value

He's larger than life.

He can bring the crowd to its feet.

He draws a crowd.
He can (really) draw a crowd.
know how to draw a crowd
He's a crowd pleaser.
He pleases the crowd.
He plays to the crowd.

He can silence a crowd with his play.

Hi, Rudy, et al.
--- On Mon, 2/23/09, rtroike at email. arizona.edu <rtroike at email. arizona.edu> wrote:

From: rtroike at email. arizona.edu <rtroike at email. arizona.edu>
Subject: [Lexicog] Re: Sprachgefühl
To: lexicographylist@ yahoogroups. com
Date: Monday, February 23, 2009, 1:15 PM

Howdy, all,

My understanding of 'Sprachgefühl' (although it may have traditionally
been applied philologically to puristic or artistic aspects) has always been
that it is essentially what Chomsky originally had in mind in invoking
'linguistic intuition' as the source of judgments of grammaticality,
including such issues as whether 'bnick' or 'tlot' is a possible word of
English. But as suggested in other posts, it can certainly extend to other
areas of contextual, stylistic, gender (in the sociological sense), age, and
regional appropriateness ('felicity', to use Austin's term).

Rudy

-- 

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   Richard A. Rhodes
   Department of Linguistics
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