adminIf England and America truly are two nations divided by a common language, then sporting talk is where the chasm is at its widest.
The different vocabulary used by fans in the US and UK — not just England — when discussing the same sports seems as entrenched as ever.
Prince Harry won American hearts for the way he handled a baseball bat on his recent visit — and hit a home run.
But the same could not be said for his compatriots. A clip in which the BBC described the sport as “cricket for Americans” was widely circulated in the US prompting much mirth.
Days later, the new British recruit to American football, Lawrence Okoye, raised eyebrows when he referred to the “pitch” instead of the correct American term “field”.
Confusion also reigns in football — the one with a round ball — in the US, where British fans are flummoxed and occasionally irritated by American phrases.
Fox Sport’s new football commentator, Gus Johnson, has been ridiculed for using phrases like “in the six” when describing action taking place in the six-yard box.
It’s difficult for British fans in the US when they hear terms they’re not familiar with but even worse if the meaning is not clear, says Florida-based Christopher Harris, who runs football blog EPL Talk.
“A popular one is ‘on frame’. So they might say ‘Gareth Bale hit a shot on frame’, meaning on target or on goal.
“That’s one that Brits think — ‘what is that?’ For me it sounds like hitting the post or the crossbar, I wouldn’t think it was a shot on target.”
Another bugbear among his website’s readers is “zero-zero” instead of nil-nil. Or a clean sheet being called a “shut-out”.
Then there are “cleats” instead of football boots and “field” instead of pitch, “uniform” instead of kit and “sideline” rather than touchline.
Most of these are terms common to US sports, words that many Americans grew up with. For some UK fans, they form a comical vocabulary that has been parodied on YouTube.
Members of a Celtic supporters’ club gathered at Flanagan’s Harp and Fiddle in Bethesda, Maryland, on Sunday morning for the Scottish Cup final said the Americanisms were a source of both amusement and annoyance.
“It used to be dreadful,” says Jim Meikle, Hibernian fan and author of a book about football addiction, Fitba Daft.
“I used to watch games on Spanish channels because even though I didn’t speak Spanish, the American commentary would interrupt the flow of the game. The first game I listened to here 30 years ago they talked about the hotbox which I assumed was the penalty box.”
We shouldn’t be irritated because we live in the US and we should accept that American English is different, says Ross Gray. But we are, perhaps because the shared football-watching experience of ex-pats provides a vital “dose of home” and a commentator like Johnson intrudes on that.
There wasn’t blanket disapproval, however. One fan said the Americans had every right to develop their own idiomatic expressions and they added colour to the football lexicon.
But it’s more complicated than the British speaking one language and the Americans another, insists Harris, who moved to Florida from the UK in 1984.
Language divides Americans, too.
“In soccer circles in the US — among fans and commentators — you have a schism between US soccer fans insisting on using American terms to describe the game compared to Americans who insist on using British language to talk about the game, so they’re more accepted by hardcore soccer fans and ex-pats.
“So when Americans use terms like ‘match’, ‘nil-nil’, ‘kit’ and other terms, many US fans will tag those Americans with the ‘Euro snob’ label.”
The American terms are sometimes known as MLS-isms, because they are more likely to be heard in commentary of Major League Soccer matches, although the big US networks have recruited more and more British voices in recent years, like Ian Darke and Arlo White.
Some American children even imitate British accents when playing at being commentators. — BBC Sport.
Online Reporter