Keeping Score With The Language Of Sports

by Kevin Burton

   I knew sports played a big role in the shaping of our common language, but I didn’t know how big.

   We previously brought you a list of sports idioms on Page 7, but none of the ones from Dictionary Scoop that we posted yesterday or the one below, we’re on that first list.

   There is seemingly no end to them!

   Number 7 below is the only one I hadn’t heard of and probably will never use.  The rest are ubiquitous, though their origin may be unknown.

6–Upper hand

   To have the upper hand implies that a person has the advantage or control over someone or something in a particular situation. In sports, when a team goes first in a game we say they have the upper hand (except in baseball). But where exactly did this expression originate? Well, there are many theories and none are definitive.

   Some suggest that this phrase dates back to the 15th century and is related to an obsolete pastime. In this game, the first player grips a shaft at the bottom end while the next places his or her hand just above it until the upper end of the shaft is reached. Finally, when the last person takes the last grip, it means they have the “upper hand.”

   Later, in the 20th century, this method of finding a random winner was often used in baseball and cricket when hands would be placed on a bat and the last to take a grip got to play the game first.

7–Lose your bottle

   When someone has lost their bottle they have lost their nerve and their bravery. Contrary to what you may think, this expression has nothing to do with liquor courage. In fact, this phrase originates from the world of bare-knuckle prizefighting during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

   In a fighter’s corner, one of his seconds was known as “the bottle man” and his job was to supply water to a fighter between rounds. Without water, a fighter was unable to continue and sometimes it was known for cornermen to be asked to walk away and leave when a fighter was taking a beating, to provide an excuse for him to drop out. The phrase “lost his bottleman” was later shortened and popularly used to describe cowardly behavior.

8–Win hands down

   This is a widely used expression in the world of sport but it has extended to all aspects of life. To win hands down suggests a very comfortable, easy victory. Its roots can be found not in poker but in horse racing. In the 19th century, winning hands down meant that a jockey was so certain of his victory in the closing stages of a race that he could lower his hands and relax his grip on the reins.

   Even today, when a jockey is winning comfortably he can gallop down the finishing straight without using his whip to encourage the nag along. The shortened version hands down is a metaphor of ease extended beyond the domain of horse racing and is used today to convey “without a doubt, no question.”

9–Bandy about

   If someone’s name, an idea, or a story are bandied about it means they are being discussed frequently by manypeople in a casual or informal way. What you probably didn’t know is that this phrase originated in France and is related to the world of sports.

   The game of Bander was an early form of tennis and involved hitting a ball to and fro. Later, in the 1600s, the Irish invented a team game, a hockey predecessor, that required a group of people bandying a ball between them. They called the sport Bande after the French game because of the similarities between the two ideas. Also, they used a crooked stick that later led to the term bandy-legged to refer to those with bow legs.

10–Across the board

   Simply put, across the board means all-encompassing, wide-ranging, and applying to all. Like many of the idioms included in this article, this one also has roots in horse racing. In the U.S., this expression referred to a bet in which equal amounts were staked on the same horse to win, place, or show in a race.

   In the 19th century, large boards would be used to display the odds on a horse to come first, second, or third in a given race. A popular bet was to place an even amount of money on just one horse for every possible outcome. This was known as an “across-the-board bet.”