Time for a new word game in Gaelic football
No, I don’t see it as an admission that the well of inspiration has run dry; neither does it indicate a fatal cynicism entering my soul (diplacing the non-fatal variety lurking there these many years, says you).
But the recent kerfuffle over the attractiveness of Gaelic football has forced me to take a leaf from the book of Lizzie Skurnick, specifically her new book, That Should Be A Word.
Skurnick coins new terms to fit a particular situation (“smearch: to Google someone in hopes of finding bad news” is one of hers, as is “skinjecture,” where you’re trying to see if someone has had plastic surgery or not,” she writes, adding that: “I love it because it has skin, inject, conjecture…”)
Well, there’s plenty of room in the modern world of Gaelic football to fit in some neologisms.
when commentators and the public can’t rein in their long- windedness about the fact that teams defend in depth at inter county level.
At times it seems as though the speaker is approaching oxygen debt, or at least a dangerously high blood pressure setting, when castigating a particular manager for his insistence on getting a dozen men behind the ball.
On television, the camera usually switches away when the speaker is finished, so you don’t see them breathing deeply into a brown paper bag to calm down afterwards.
But your neighbourhood boozer may not be similarly equipped, so keep an eye out for potential accidents.
this is a catch-all term used as an excuse for blanket defending, kicking ankles and everything else down to acting the corner-boy if the opposition are taking a kick-out.
The clue is in the middle of the word, and the term ‘reality’, which, the speaker is trying to suggest, is the all-conquering term which dictates everyone’s action. You may take the philosophical view that we determine what reality is rather than the other way around, but most Gaelic football commentators will accuse you of idealism, naivete, and detachment from reality before they go on to envisage a future for Gaelic football which resembles the less pleasant parts of Mordor.
Nobody quite knows when the word ‘open’ became such a poisonous term, usually applied with a shake of the head and a roll of the eyebrows. It may have originated in one of the pastings dished out by Kerry to Mayo in All-Ireland finals of the past decade, where a generation of western children had their retinas scalded by the wide green pastures of Croke Park being overrun by the rampaging hordes from the deep south-west.
In any event, ‘open’ is now not so much a curse word in polite football society but a faux pas that usually ensures an embarrassed silence until the speaker recovers, often with a diversionary lunge into free-taking technique.
It’s all a little reminiscent of Nancy Mitford’s famous division of terms into U and non-U in Noblesse Oblige, but instead of lavatory v toilet, you simply do not use the word ‘open’. Not if you want to be taken seriously.
this rarely-applied term is intended to cover a scenario where a Northern Ireland pundit actually ceases to complain about aspects of Gaelic football. To the best of the lexicographers’ knowledge, it has never yet been deployed seriously.
How often does that happen? A stupendous weekend of sport fizzling out so quickly?
The boxing proved a non-event due to Peter Quillan failing the weigh-in. The Masters didn’t fire due to Jordan Spieth’s dominance (here endeth my confident pronouncements on golf). The boat race was a two horse race. Again. The football you can read about elsewhere in the paper, and not just on this page.
Before leaving this topic, though, a word on Andy Lee. As John Fogarty of this parish pointed out on Twitter during the week, this is a man whose bearing and dedication have been admirable for many years and in challenging circumstances; he is now a world champion in a sport which has been a by-word for savage competition for decades. He deserves better than to be cast into the shadows by a noisy sideshow barker.
Commiserations to the family of Ray Treacy on his passing, which came as a surprise.
I didn’t know him personally but the former footballer always came across on television as knowledgeable, passionate and probably great company when the mikes were turned off and nobody was held in check by considerations of the audience.
For this writer, he’s redolent of a time when the beautiful game’s advocates were the likes of Liam Tuohy and Philip Green, men who were passionate about their sport but whose timing might have been a few years out. When the Jack’s Army bandwagon began to roll across the land, a lot of the people who kept the fire burning in less amenable times were forgotten.
It’s always nice to get a glimpse of a little humanity in the rough world of professional sports. That’s why we warmed to the story earlier this week of Matt LaChappa and Major League Baseball’s San Diego Padres.
In 1996 LaChappa left the Barona Indian Reservation in California to join the Padres, and it was such a big deal for his tribe that half of them came along just to see him sign his contract.
Tragically, LaChappa suffered a heart attack as he warmed up to play a minor league game, and though he survived, he’s been confined to a wheelchair ever since, with limited movement and communication. The Padres have renamed a park they own after LaChappa and will have him as a guest of honour when they open the 2015 season, but their support goes further than that.
Every year the club signs LaChappa to another minor league contract. The money isn’t huge — officials often have to call LaChappa to remind him to cash the cheques — but employing him means he has full health insurance. The quality of your medical care in the States is dependent on your health insurance, so this is far more beneficial than a large salary to LaChappa.
A nice touch.
