Name: Why is football so full of cliches? | BBC Ideas
Uploaded: 2020-10-15T20:00:30.000Z
Duration: 2 min 41 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Adverbs of degree

Participle clauses

Broadly speaking, there are two types of football clichés.

phrases that are so obvious that they're not even worth repeating.

because they are comforting, reliable filler.

talking about the weather with your in-laws.

football phrases that have become accepted as true

When a fan repeats such myths as, "Some people say..."

that their team will suddenly and spectacularly let them down.

For all that the English language of football has evolved

into something rather ornate over the last 150 years,

other countries have embraced their more poetic side.

that is the extreme top corner of the goal,

the Brazilians might call 'onde a dorme coruja', literally -

to describe the fundamental act of scoring a goal,

none are quite as evocative as the French -

Football commentary is awash with bizarre words and phrases

borrowed from other walks of life, often from decades ago.

would the average football fan use the words...

...that is a goal scored tidily but with a flourish.

but now for a defender who has a habit of suddenly bursting upfield

but it has given the occasional word or phrase back

…some claim originates from the BBC's radio coverage in the 1920s,

when a commentator would refer to a grid system,

to indicate where the ball was on the pitch at that moment.

They exist to fill gaps, to lubricate debate

and to act as a conversational leveller between a novice

So with the saturation of football coverage

spare a thought for the much maligned cliché

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Why is football so full of cliches? | BBC Ideas

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