[Lexicog] Re: Sports Sprachgef ühling

[Fritz Goerling]

Scott,

 

Thanks for your great list on expressions from sports.

The ones with “instinct” catch what is expressed by “Ballgefühl”. You have
it or you don’t.

As you mentioned “killer instinct” and “quick on the draw”, here is a funny
story from the Wild West:

 

The old West was a place of sudden violence, where the strong conquered: and
to be strong generally meant to be quick and sure with a six gun.
Accordingly, the men of the West developed great respect for swiftness of
the gun hand. They also possessed an extremely realistic attitude toward
death. That final shuffling off of the coils was altogether too present in
the cowboy’s existence to grieve long about. It had to be accepted as
philosophically as it was possible to do so, in the attitude, that the
inevitable merely came sooner than it might have. A cowboy who had lost out
in a gunfight was being buried by his friends. As the sod was heaved upon
his box, someone “sorta felt a few words orter be said.” A Church of England
prayer book was produced by a rancher’s wife, and someone read out the verse
about the “quick and the dead.” As he turned sadly from the grave, one
puncher shook his head to another. "Ol’ Bill wasn’t very quick,” he
observed, “but he sure is dead.”

 

I like your new coinage “Sprachgefühling.” :-)

 

Fritz

 


 

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 at 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

 



-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lexicography/attachments/20090224/c2f8a69a/attachment.htm>