Comments on: Varieties of English

By: cafl

cafl — Tue, 23 Mar 2004 17:25:19 +0000

I’m confused…upset is a perfectly good verb. “Upset the applecart”, e.g.

By: Odd Ray of Hope

Odd Ray of Hope — Tue, 23 Mar 2004 14:12:51 +0000

No doubt language innovations introduced by sportscasters are distressing. But you can’t stop them, you can only hope to contain them.

By: orangebob

orangebob — Mon, 22 Mar 2004 22:14:58 +0000

Yesterday my stomach was upset while visiting Nevada. I think I ate too much Gonzaga cheese.

By: Alan

Alan — Mon, 22 Mar 2004 19:58:43 +0000

Verbing nouns weirds them.

By: the diddy

the diddy — Mon, 22 Mar 2004 19:44:06 +0000

I think sportswriters use “shock” to describe a game in which the presumed lesser team took the presumed greater team out to the woodshed. In other words, this game was too one-sided to be an “upset.” Remember, the original Upset beat Man O’ War by half a length out of 6 furlongs.

By: Kieran Healy

Kieran Healy — Mon, 22 Mar 2004 19:39:20 +0000

The CNN news crawler just told me (1) Illini routes Cincinnati, 92-68. How does that sound? Maybe 92 and 68 are buses.

By: Matt Weiner

Matt Weiner — Mon, 22 Mar 2004 19:13:24 +0000

Yet another vote for (1) sounding fine. I think that once you let in “upset” as a verb in this sense this formulation was inevitable. Part of the reason I like it is that its meaning is obvious and it concisely puts all of the things Sebastian says. Jonathan’s (8) sounds bad to me, though. One problem is that it’s not clear from it whether Nevada beat Gonzaga by a lot or whether Gonzaga was favored by a lot. Does Gonzaga just win the same number of games no matter where they’re seeded, or is it that they’re more likely to win when they’re not favored?

By: Brian Weatherson

Brian Weatherson — Mon, 22 Mar 2004 18:37:50 +0000

Lots of good points here. On Jonathan’s question, I find “Nevada almost upset Gonzaga” fine, but “Nevade easily upset Gonzaga” questionable. I have no idea why that could be.

By: maurinsky

maurinsky — Mon, 22 Mar 2004 18:25:08 +0000

Another typical way a sports broadcaster would say this is: Nevada beat Gonzaga by 19 points on Saturday in a(n) (adjective) upset! The adjective would likely be stunning, shocking, surprising, astonishing, etc. depending on the teams involved.

By: Edward Swaine

Edward Swaine — Mon, 22 Mar 2004 18:02:37 +0000

It also strikes me as unorthodox. Still, I suppose that if the broadcaster meant, “Nevada upset Gonzaga—by 19 points!—on Saturday,” you would be content? We should also consider the possibility that this was intended to communicate information about the spread (that is, communicating both that there was a seeding upset, and a spread upset), but then this might be overly compact.

By: Sebastian Holsclaw

Sebastian Holsclaw — Mon, 22 Mar 2004 17:43:31 +0000

I don’t really see the problem with 1). In fact I kind of like it because it crams quite a bit of information into a short sentence: Nevada and Gonzaga played Saturday. Nevada beat Gonzaga by 19 points. Gonazaga was expected to win in the Saturday game against Gonazaga. My long-winded style could take some advice from that sportscaster.

By: Jonathan Ichikawa

Jonathan Ichikawa — Mon, 22 Mar 2004 17:41:06 +0000

(1) sounds perfectly good to me. I’m curious about the dialect in which it is impermissible. How do you feel about the following? (4) Nevada almost upset Gonzaga. (5) Nevada just barely upset Gonzaga. (6) Nevada just barely managed to upset Gonzaga. (7) “Nevada upset Gonzaga.” “Just barely, right?” “No, by 19 points!” (8) Nevada thoroughly upset Gonzaga.

By: rea

rea — Mon, 22 Mar 2004 17:39:39 +0000

“Red Sox beats Yanks 5-4/On Chapman’s Homer” Red Sox ace J. Keats gets the win and (in a controversial decision by the official scorer), H. Cortez gets credit for the save. Red Sox officials declined to comment on the status of their contract negotiations with Keats, who reportedly is seeking “realms of gold” to forego free agency . . .

By: ogged

ogged — Mon, 22 Mar 2004 17:35:05 +0000

I’ll put in another vote for (1) sounding fine.

By: nnyhav

nnyhav — Mon, 22 Mar 2004 17:11:26 +0000

What’s more worrisome is the adaptation of the sportspeak dialect into common usage. (Though “Red Sox beats Yanks 5-4/On Chapman’s Homer” suggests it ain’t all bad.) A-and Wilson only upset Europe by 14 points.