- alas and alack
- back of beyond, the
- back to back
- back to basics
- bag and baggage
- bear the brunt, to
- bed and board
- bee in my bonnet, a
- bigger the better, the
- black and blue
- blind as a bat, as
- boom or bust
- born and bred
- brains or brawn
- bread and butter
- brittened and brent
- brown as a berry
- captains of commerce
- chump change
- clay and clod
- clean your clock
- cool as a cucumber
- dale and down
- deaf and dumb
- dime a dozen, a
- do or die
- down and dirty
- down in the dumps
- ducks and drakes
- dune and dale
- fair of face
- fair or foul
- fast and furious, the
- femme fatale
- fine fettle, in
- fire and flood
- firth and fell
- fish to fry, other
- fit as a fiddle
- forgive and forget
- fortune 500
- free and fair
- friends and family
- frith and field
- geese and goslings
- good as gold, as
- good for the goose is good for the gander, what’s
- green as grass, as
- hale and hearty
- hands on hips
- hand over head
- have and hold
- have and to hold, to
- head over heels
- heart to heart
- hearth and home
- heavy hitter
- hell or high water
- hide nor hair
- hill and hollow
- hot and heavy
- hounds of hell
- house and home
- house and harbour
- judge and jury
- jump for joy, to
- kit and caboodle
- kith and kin
- labor of love
- law of the land. the
- lesson learned
- lessons learned
- life and limb
- lith and land
- lithe and lissom
- live and learn
- look before you leap
- lords and ladies
- make or miss
- mark and meed
- meet your match
- might and main
- mind over matter
- mixed message
- mixed messages
- more, the merrier, the
- neck and neck
- need to know
- next to nothing
- now or never
- pack a punch
- part and parcel
- peer pressure
- penny wise, pound foolish
- pet peeve
- phrase and fable
- pole position
- poor but proud
- pots and pans
- pride of place
- prim and proper
- prime the pump
- raise the roof
- right and wrong
- risk and reward
- rock and roll
- sand and shore
- saints and sinners
- sink or swim
- slip and slide
- spick and span
- stars and stripes
- sticks and stones
- strand and stream
- sugar and spice
- swear and stare
- sweet and sour
- sweet as sugar, as
- sweet science
- take your time
- thick and thin
- thick as thieves, as
- think twice
- time and tide
- time will tell
- tit for tat
- topsy-turvy
- trailer trash
- trash talking
- tried and true
- trim for tram, to take
- vim and vigor
- war of words
- wit and wisdom
- word to the wise, a
- writing is on the wall, the
Category Archives: Sports Writer
English Reduplicated Phrases
- blah-blah
- bling-bling
- bye-bye
- chi-chi
- choo-choo
- chop-chop
- goody-goody
- knock-knock
- no-no
- rah-rah
- shi-shi
- so-so
- wee-wee
- yada-yada
English Rhyming Phrases
- argy-bargy
- arsy-varsy
- arty-farty
- back-ackwards
- bigwig
- boob-tube
- boogie-woogie
- chick flick
- chock-a-block
- easy-peasy
- eensy-weensy
- fuddy-duddy
- fuzzy-wuzzy
- gang-bang
- hanky-panky
- happy-clappy
- harum-scarum
- heebie-jeebies
- helter-skelter
- higgledy-piggledy
- hob-nob
- hobson-jobson
- hocus-pocus
- hodge-podge
- hoity-toity
- hokey-pokey
- hub-bub
- hubble-bubble
- hugger-mugger
- humpty-dumpty
- istsy-bitsy
- itty-bitty
- June gloom
- lardy-dardy
- lovey-dovey
- mumbo-jumbo
- namby-pamby
- nitty-gritty
- okey-dokey
- pell-mell
- rag-tag
- raggle-taggle
- razzle-dazzle
- rump and stump
- rumpy-bumpy
- rumpy-pumpy
- sing-song
- slap-happy
- surf and turf
- teenie-weenie
- teensy-weensy
- walkie-talkie
- willy-nilly
- woo-hoo
English Land Names
- canyon
- chistle ‘gravel’ | Old English ceosol ‘gravel’
- clough ‘ravine’
- dale
- dell
- firien ‘mountain’ | Old English firgen ‘mountain’
- forest
- hill
- howe
- lea ‘open field, meadow’
- leap
- mount
- mountain
- peak
- pinnacle
- ravine
- shaw ‘thicket, copse’
- swale ‘low place, shady place”
- swidden ‘burned clearing’
- tell
- wood
English Reduplicated Ablaut Phrases
- bric-a-brac
- chit-chat
- clip-clop
- dilly-dally
- ding-dong
- fiddle-faddle
- flim-flam
- flip-flop
- frick and frack
- gibble-gabble
- hip-hop
- kringlety-kranglety
- mish-mash
- ning-nong
- ping-pong
- riff-raff
- shilly-shally
- sing-song
- swish-swash
- tick-tock
- tip-top
- trim for tram
- twiddle-twaddle
- wishy-washy
- zig-zag
English Bird Names
- corncrake | Crex crex
- culver
- daw | Corvus monedula
- duck
- gannet | Sula bassana
- grackle
- mouser AKA Mousehawk AKA Kestrel | Falco tinnunculus | Old English musere, mushafoc
- night raven AKA Night Heron | Nycticorax nycticorax
- redmouth AKA Pheasant | Phasianus colchicus
- rook | Corvus frugilegus
- shelver AKA Great Crested Grebe | Podiceps cristatus
- shrab AKA Shag | Phalacrocorax aristotelis
- spearhawk AKA Sparrowhawk | Accipiter nisus
- stork AKA White Stork | Ciconia ciconia
- swan AKA Mute Swan | Cygnus olor
- throstle | Turdus philomelos
- thrush
- tish AKA Buzzard | Buteo buteo | Old English tysca
English Animal Names
- badger | Old English *bagga ‘badger’
- brock
- brown | Old English *brun ‘pig’
- buck
- bull | Old English *bula ‘bull’
- ean | Old English *ean ‘lamb’
- deer
- dog
- ever
- farrow
- gitten | Old English*gæten ‘kid’
- galt | Old English *galt ‘pig, boar’ cf. gilt
- gray | Old Englsih *græg ‘badger’
- hart
- hind
- hirse | Old English *hyrse ‘mare’
- hogget
- hound
- ight | Old Englsih iht
- lamb
- mare
- pad | Old English *padde ‘toad]
- paddock| Old English *padduc ‘frog’
- pig | Old English *pigga ‘young pig’
- pocca | Old English *pohha/*pocca ‘fallow deer’
- poccel | Old English *pohhel/*poccel ‘fallow deer fawn’
- stead | Old English *stedda ‘horse’
- stud
- tack | Old English *tacca and *tagga ‘teg, young sheep’
- tige | Old Englsih *tige ‘goat’
- todd | Old English *todd ‘fox’
- warrow | Old English *wearg ‘wolf ’
- wether | Old English*wiðer ‘ram, wether’
Jerry Buss On The Lakers
Jerry Buss on the Lakers and Los Angeles:
“One of the first things I tried to do when I bought the team was to make it an identification for this city, like Motown in Detroit,” he says. “I try to keep that identification alive. I’m a real Angeleno. I want us to be part of the community.”
“Los Angeles is about diversity, and so are the Lakers,” he says.
In Defense Of Robert Horry
I’m a lifelong Lakers fan, coming of age in the Showtime era of Earvin “Magic” Johnson, James “Big Game James ” Worthy, and Kareem “Cap” Abdul-Jabbar. More recently I savored the Threepeat of Shaq and Kobe, but my favorite Laker player of all time is Robert “Big Shot Bob” Horry (a nickname he apparently dislikes). I dig his style, the way he picks his spots during the course of a long season, and, of course, his uncanny ability to knock down a three-pointer when nothing else will do.
Now that the Lakers have fallen on hard times (short-lived, I hope), I’ve temporarily transferred my play-off loyalties to Horry’s new team, the San Antonio Spurs. Imagine my outrage when Horry was universally branded the bad guy in Game 4 of the current Phoenix-San Antonio series!
In the interest of fairness, I feel about the Suns — who have now knocked the Lakers out of the play-offs two years in a row — like I felt about the 1980s Celtics. They’re whiny cheaters … and an incredibly talented team who have redefined basketball. In short, they’re the perfect arch-rivals. Why couldn’t the Lakers have drafted Leandro Barbosa when we had the chance?
That being said, I think Nash is more to blame than Horry for the suspension of his teammates Stoudamire and Diaw and therefore for the Suns’ loss to San Antonio in last night’s Game 5. Here’s my man Rob’s woefully under-reported account of the controversial foul, buried beneath the Phoenix reaction:
Meanwhile, Horry said he was an old school guy and that in his early years, his foul would have been no big deal. He said he bumped Nash when he realized he wouldn’t be able to get in front of him to draw an offensive foul.
‘If it would have been anybody but Steve Nash, it probably wouldn’t have been two games,’ he said after the Spurs shootaround. ‘But you know Steve is a great player, MVP. He’s a focal point of the NBA now and they just have to protect their players.’
Horry said Nash over-dramatized the bump when he went flying into the scorer’s table.
‘I thought I’d just bump him a little bit,’ Horry said. ‘As you know, the great acting skills Steve has, when he hit the floor, then flopped and did ‘Oh, I’m dying here’ it happens. I really wasn’t trying to hurt him. I had no malicious intent to hurt Steve. I like Steve. He’s a good person.’
Horry already was a target for Phoenix fans. When he was with the Suns in 1997, he tossed a towel in the face of then-coach Danny Ainge.
Now Phoenix fans have changed Horry’s nickname from ‘Big Shot Rob’ to ‘Cheap Shot Rob.’
‘It doesn’t bother me,’ he said. ‘I was already hated here in Phoenix anyway, but the messed up thing is the boos were kind of disappearing. Damn, now I’ve got to start all over.’
Now if you watch the replay carefully, that’s exactly what happened — Nash was bumped into the scorer’s table, then he threw himself on his back to dramatize the foul. But that doesn’t fit the “narrative”, does it? The Suns are supposed to be the brave, scrappy underdogs, and the Spurs are known as the wily, boring old guard. The Nash side makes a better story, whether it’s “true” or not.
No, I don’t think Stoudamire and Diaw should have been suspended for violating the letter (rather than the spirit) of the “don’t leave the bench” law. But I also don’t think Robert Horry, of all people, should be branded a dirty player because of a Steve Nash flop. If you ask me, the league should be looking for flops as well as dangerous play — Raja Bell got away with another acting job last night.
The bottom line is that the Suns are the story this year, and just about everyone would rather watch a Suns-Cavs final than a Spurs-Pistons match-up. Me, I can’t wait for Game 6 tomorrow!
The Manchester United Football Brand
The Independent has a great story on the branding strategy of Manchester United, one of the world’s premiere football (soccer) clubs. United’s chief executive, David Gill, has recruited Lee Daley of Saatchi & Saatchi to more effectively compete with the likes of rival powerhouse Real Madrid.