Sports Guy's editor missed something...

never said he didn't. just pointing to a likelyhood.

 

and I'm just verifying that he should weep because he sucks

 

No, we remain at the point where having a basic mastery of which words mean what in which context is our job description.

"getting that fifth spade on the river"? In Boston? On a basketball team? Really?

Any reader over the age of about 40 might potentially read that sentence as a racist pun. Whether or not Simmons intended it; or whether or not he has readers over the age of 40 is immaterial.

 

I agree with jgmacg, so you can cast me as one of the "PC Police" if you so choose. The deck of cards has four suits, and only one of them could be interpreted as a racial slur when plugged into this metaphor. So why use that one?

It's the same reason you don't say someone "went down with an injury" or some team rallied for a "come-from-behind" victory. It's obvious you don't actually MEAN something sexual, but the connotation is possible, so you avoid it.

In my view, it's not being overly PC, it's showing a little common sense.

 

I'd say Simmons is less guilty of using a bigoted term than he is of employing (yet another) shopworn cliche with the poker analogy. How fresh! How current! How now, brown cow!

Sportsworld's most respected blogger strikes again!

P.S. Twenty years ago I heard a guy make an emphatic point in conversation, ending with "I'm just calling a spade a shovel."

 

Still not as bad as spearchucker

 

Not even close.

 

True. And seriously, wouldn't it be better all around (if you are going to use poker cliches) to refer to a new black basketball player as a diamond than as a spade?

 

Seriously?

 

clubs = abuse and murder of seals
diamonds = obviously blood diamonds
hearts = a dig at Dick Cheney

Sports Guy would have been better off using an UNO deck.

 

That's an urban legend that seems to have started in the 1970s. While men were allowed to beat their wives -- there was never a rule about the size of the beating tool based on the width of the man's thumb.

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/307000.html

And if someone in HR tells you that you can't use that phrase because of an urban legend, I say tell 'em to stick it where the sun don't shine.

 

Yes. Why not?