Football season is upon us once again. And it’s time to desensitize our ears to football lingo being uttered every weekend by thousands of Al Michaels and Chris Collinsworth wannabes at a stadium near you.
Now, there’s game terminology, such as “yardage” and “touchdown”, which football fans will hear during every game. But, then there’s also the excessive expressive talk. Here’s a short list of five words or phrases that football announcers simply overuse:
- Tremendous – I don’t think this word would even exist were it not for football. Howard Cosell was, perhaps, the one who popularized the word, tremendous.
- Monster – as in BIG! “Jones is having a monster game” or “The Colts’ matchup with the Patriots next Sunday is going to be a monster game”.
- Wide Open – This one must be taught in Football Broadcasting 101. Announcers at every level of competition, high school, college or pro, use “wide open” at least once a game to describe a player who had no coverage during a passing play.
- Execute or Execution – Somebody somewhere told football announcers that saying “He’s really executing well.” instead of “He’s really playing well,” makes them appear more educated. But hey, Terry Bradshaw says execute…so what does that tell you?
- Work Ethic – I hear this one a lot in basketball also. It goes very well with entry number one, “He has a tremendous work ethic!”
So, if you want to give up your day job and try football announcing as a career, just start constructing sentences with one or more of the above phrases. “Davis, showing tremendous execution and work ethic, managed to get wide open on that monster play.”
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