July 17 - Sports Clichés Week
“Clichés take you back to a point in time when life was simpler and we were taken care of by parents,” says Dr. Don Powell, author of the book “Best Sports Clichés Ever!” Powell is a clinical psychologist and CEO of the American Institute of Preventative Medicine in Farmington Hills, Michigan.
“Just as you have comfort foods, I think you have comfort expressions. Sports clichés serve that purpose of bringing us back to a point in time in life that was simpler and easy. They make us feel good,” he says.
There’s a reason why some phrases became ingrained into the language, Powell says. “It’s a shorthand,” he explains. “You say a guy threw up a wounded duck, the guy next to you knows exactly what you’re saying.” Talking the talk gives a person entry into a club. Being able to speak sports and using the sports clichés to good effect, Powell says, is like a secret handshake.
Powell makes the case for sports clichés, suggesting among other virtues that clichés:
• Express a lot in just a few words
• Are common and familiar, and thus soothing in a fast changing world
• Provide comfort and trust
• Make us feel good
• Establish an emotional connection with us
• Are enjoyed by most–we are “enamored of them” (though we complain about them)
• Are used because they always seem to fit
• Allow us to communicate in a simplified manner
• Make us feel exclusive, members of a special club of sorts who know the lingo of a sport
• Allow us to say the same thing in varied ways