We really enjoyed the first two games today and hope you did too. Our guess is Uruguay and France will have a good chance at moving through to the next round. We'll see.
Following are 5 words or phrases we chose to explain as heard from our CBC football announcers. Years of teaching English as a second language proved to us that no matter the number of lessons, you will regularly find words that just aren't found in your English texts and classes. For example:
1) "The referee is taking no nonsense." - This means that the referee is not tolerating or accepting inappropriate behaviour (like false injury claims) or verbal abuse from the players. An everyday use may be "My mother accepted no nonsense when we went to visit my grandparents."
2) "a bit of a tussle" - A tussle is a struggle or fight for something. Usually a tussle is describing a physical competition for something. In the case of the football game, the tussle is usually over the ball. The word tussle is a gentler word than fight. I, personally, would much rather be in a tussle than a fight.
3) "spot on" - This equates to "absolutely correct" or "perfect". The announcer said that the pass from the midfielder to the striker was spot on. Perfect.
4) "They found themselves at sixes and sevens." - A distinctly British saying not usually used in North America that equates to "being disorganized". In this case the ball was sent through towards goal but the forward players did not seem to know where the ball was and who should be going to get it. The play failed because of this disorganization.
5)"in a very decent position" - Decent has a few meanings like; honest, trustworthy, correct, nice, and acceptable. In everyday English there is a difference between calling someone "nice" (positive) or calling someone "acceptable" (usually negative). In this instance, the announcer was suggesting that he thought the team would do well further in the tournament if the score stayed where it was. So the weaker team (in the opinion of the announcer) was in a better or stronger position than the announcer expected after the tied score at the end of the game. They found themselves in a decent position at the end of the game (rather than in an awkward or difficult position if they had lost the game).
We are going to gather words from every matchday and explain a few every post. If you heard some words you would like explained (nothing in poor taste or profane please), please suggest them in your comment or email us at yourenglishconnection@gmail.com
Enjoy Matchday #2!
Cool! That's really great because i'd never heard of those expressions before!
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