Sporting idioms and where they come from
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Well, now I'm joined by Cameron Hill.
Cameron, good morning. Good morning, Pat. How are you? I'm very well. We want to talk about everyday idioms that have crept into our speech that have been derived from sport. But before we do that... You're a rugby man. What did you make of yesterday and indeed Friday night?
A tough weekend for Irish rugby on what could have been a glorious weekend. I suppose it felt like Montpellier were always going to pull away from Ulster in the Challenge Cup final on Friday night. And yeah, there's a reason Bordeaux were so hotly tipped to go back to back in the Champions Cup this year. Leinster, while they did score first... It seemed like Bordeaux scored far easier when they got their first try. And when you've got the likes of Louis Bialbiare, Maxime Lucu, Mathieu Jalibert, Damien Pennault, to name but a few in your team, it's only going to go one way, you feel.
What are the everyday idioms derived from sports?
Yeah. The problem is not that they lost. It's that they lost so badly.
And there were mistakes and it felt like it was the story of Leinster's season where there were knock-ons needlessly at the back of the ruck. Just sloppy individual errors because they could have kept Bordeaux much closer. But it really did feel like, despite the scoreline, Bordeaux didn't get out of third gear really. It felt like they still had a little bit more to give.
But I wonder, was it that Bordeaux simply didn't allow them to play? I mean, the number of interceptions was phenomenal. In other words, Bordeaux were really quick.
Yeah. And it's emblematic, I suppose, of the French stranglehold that they have on European rugby right now. I think it's the last six champions in the Champions Cup are French. And you just feel like it's going to be very hard for anyone outside of the top 14 to break that hoodoo.
All right, well, we shall have to wait for next season. Anyway, let's move on to these idioms. Did you come in here on your Todd?
No, well, I was on the bus, if that counts. But yeah, so on your Todd, I only discovered this last week, comes from James Foreman Sloan, who was a very successful jockey at the turn of the 20th century, known as Toad by his father, a rather cruel nickname because he was very short. He changed it to Todd, which I think was a good call, and At age 12, his disproportionately short legs helped him become a jockey, a very successful jockey in fact. He dominated the racing scene on the east coast of the US in the late 1890s. He won 46% of his races that he entered in 1898 and then he moves to the UK where he's selected to ride for the King, then Prince of Wales, then King Edward VII. and wins the 1,000 guineas at Newmarket in 1899 and the Ascot Gold Cup the following year.
He also popularised the monkey crouch position on the horse, so he shortened his stirrups and rode up high on the saddle, which then became the done thing across horse racing. Apparently, everyone rode upright, which is one of those situations in history where I know we have the benefit of hindsight, but how did that not occur to anybody to do that in horse racing? Now, he had a lot of success and, of course, fame, but quite a few detractors as well. Why? Yeah, the British racing scene, not a fan of this. Maybe a little bit of Yankophobia in here too, but the British Jockey Club in 1901 refused him a licence for unspecified conduct prejudicial to the best interests of the sport. And he lived hard too and blew through his vast winnings.
So he purchased a small bistro in Paris in 1911 and converted it into what became Harry's Bar in My goodness. So the famous modernist haunt of the likes of Ernest Hemingway. I think James Bond drinks there a good bit in Ian Fleming's novels. Other rumours were that he gave substances to improve the performances of his horse. And he was also accused of betting on his own races on multiple occasions, charges he was later cleared of. And to kind of do his PR a bit of good, he released a memoir in 1915 called Todd Sloan by himself. And that's probably what led to the name Todd Sloan. So on your Todd Sloan is Cockney rhyming slang to be on your own.
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