New Cliches

"Stepping up" annoys me a little.

 

you can gauge the thoroughness that a cliche has seeped into the national sporting consciousness by the frequency with which it's used by high school athletes.

Certainly, not a postgame interview goes by for me in which some young athlete doesn't tell me that he or she had to "step up."

Another one the football coaches around here (eastern NC) have seized upon is "coached up," which is almost 10 years after the ol' Ballcoach made it part of the national sporting lexicon.

Finally, it's not a cliche but I don't ever talk to a coach without getting second-hand information. Every interview contains a preface of "It's just like I tell these kids..."

 

I've never gotten the "untracked" thing either. Why in the hell would a team not want to be a on track? Isn't that the goal? When I've used, I've always done on track.

I also had to stop myself from using "instant classic" not long ago. It just hit me that a middle-of-the-season prep tennis match probably shouldn't qualify.

 

"Scoop and score" from football.

"Score the basketball" from hoops. You don't score the basketball. You score by putting the ball in the fucking hoop.

 

Definitely the most prevalent are:

"It is what it is"
"At the end of the day"


(sometimes, people will go through both of those in one comment).

 

Take away "step up" and "like", and the nation's female prep athletes would lose about 87 percent of their vocabulary when talking to reporters.

"Walkoff" doesn't bother me at all.

 

What is another name for "derailed?" Is that the daily double?

 

Obviously, the right words are "on track" but the idea behind "untracked" is that you're stuck in a rut (track) and then get out of it. More here:

http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002148.html

 

They love "threw him under the bus."

 

They love sucking. Ever hear their lead-pipe cinch locks segment at the end of the week. Most annoying, obnoxious feature in talk radio and that's quite an accomplishment.

Yeah, I know, turn the channel...

 

I do switch stations. I like a lot of their show, but I turned just before the lead-pipe lock segment because it is such a silly disaster. I also can't stand when Greenberg says several times each day that they are "back and better than ever."

 

In this particular circumstance [/al groh]