Brilliant idea, Joel.

I can't come up with anything at the moment, I'll just take each post as it comes, and I'll try and give 110 percent to put the 2 points on the board at the end of the day.

For now though, I'm going to ask if we can add talking illogical nonsense or abuse of the English language. We can? Good.

Who writes Stephen Fleming's speeches?

Stephen Fleming expects England to beat Kenya in the final Group C World Cup qualifier and advance to the Super 8 stage.

The Kiwis sealed their spot in the next round with a 148-run win over Kenya.

Fleming said of the chance of an upset on Saturday: "I've been surprised at a few of the results here (in the World Cup) already but I would be surprised."

 

The man is clearly a gifted wordsmith.

Nixon IS clearly a busy bollocks. Maybe it's a 'keeper thing. Sangakkara is too.

The king of the cliches right now though is "putting your hands up". Which Nixon did in his blog yesterday. Believe me, as a Toon fan, I know all about this one. Hitler's put his hands up, and admitted that the final solution was in retrospect a mistake, so that's all right then...

Anyway, there's more: the people of the Caribbean do nothing but drink rum, smoke spliff and listen to Bob Marley on the beach. And say "maaahhn" a lot.

And "wristy" is now on its way to becoming a term of abuse for the sub-continental ethnic community in the UK. "Town full of wristies" etc.

And Collingwood is "a nuggetty nurdler" because he's ginga and didn't go to public school. Whereas he's actually a very good, very experienced, high-flair one-day player.

joel wrote:

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paichukka wrote:

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And "wristy" is now on its way to becoming a term of abuse for the sub-continental ethnic community in the UK. "Town full of wristies" etc.

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Haven't heard that one, where's it from?

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 Joel man .. you might wish you hadn't asked that question. Paichukka might come up with a smartass answer.

Someone was being interviewed on the radio about Flintoff (Darren Gough was involved but I can't exactly recall who said what) and said after this affair he has to "move on" and "come out giving it 110 per cent" to which the other guy said "no the thing is with Flintoff now is he has to give it 400 per cent".....

 

Graeme Smith: 'We spoke about it at training yesterday and we dealt with it and have moved on. Some of the players were doing it tough.

What's 'doing it tough' mean?

paichukka wrote:

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Ladies, the total commitment index long ago passed 1.1 and indeed 5.0 (Steve Harmison). I reckon Cloughie might even have taken the TCI to 10.0 in his Forest days.

And wristy is simply a word used to describe any Asian batsman. Irrespective of wether they are actually, er, wristy. An Ayrton to your quid that Bopara is described as "wristy" long before Collingwood is. When he isn't. And Collingwood is.

To be fair.

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Golcar CC wrote:

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Joel man .. you might wish you hadn't asked that question. Paichukka might come up with a smartass answer

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 I'd give that about 60% on the Smartass answer index (SAI).

At the end of the day he needs to get his head down and do it a bit tougher.

 

(do sporting personalities actually get a bonus incentive for saying "at the end of the day?" - it is the most annoying phrase I have ever heard.)

I think you've built a platform for the rest of the thread with that effort, going forward.

(You did forget the best cliche in there though. Bennett King -- West Indian cricketer with two surnames in place of a first and surname ...)



-- Edited by El Presidente at 20:25, 2007-03-22

El Presidente wrote:

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But he's an Aussie actually

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Ah, bollocks

joel wrote:

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Paul Collingwood on the Kenya encounter on Saturday:

'We have to focus on our own game and try not to think of ifs, buts and banana skins'

I quite like that...

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 A finer audition speech for a Vice-Captaincy role I have never heard.

joel wrote:

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paichukka wrote:

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The king of the cliches right now though is "putting your hands up". etc.

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Lou Vincent:

'It's been good to put my hand up today and get through a tough stage and then cash in with the boys scoring at the other end which made it easier to anchor an end'.

I love cricket

El P, give that sentence to some of your proficiency students and see what they make of it.

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To paraphrase Spinal Tap

"none more cliche"

Is there a piece of software that writes this stuff, or a Babel fish like translator that turns English into cliche?


My Proficiency students would find Mr Vincent fairly unintelligable indeed. They seemed rather well-versed on the subject of the speech we attended at the British Council last night though ("What is offensive in English? Sex, violence and profanity all included"). They now know that "****" is the most offensive word in English officially.

 

i thought it was m****r****er

-- Edited by Golcar CC at 11:58, 2007-03-23

AAP Ljubljana-Šentvid - Reporter BJ Eve on Australia's win against Sth Africa.

"Form is temporary, class is permanent."

Bloody hell. This software won't let you say ****y. That is totally J Arthur

Golcar CC wrote:

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Mark Shield says that Pakistan are free to go ... and then calls two of them back in for one more question.

How cliched is that?

Lt. Colombo (walks away then turns): Oh, more thing ...

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"Nixon's an extrovert, at least outwardly."
Mark Richardson with just a hint of tautology

Private Eye are swines: still waiting for my last two issues....

Ricky Ponting on auto-cliche-pilot

"This is a World Cup, and a lot comes with playing cricket for Australia," Ponting said. "When you cross that white line it's about giving 100% and doing your best for yourself and for your team, and so I'm not surprised with what we've done so far. We've got room for improvement, sure, but I think we're pretty sharp in all areas. It's early in the tournament and no trophies are being handed out now, so we need to keep a lid on things, have a look at how we're playing and keep trying to improve."



By the way football and Arsenal fans, is Arsene Wenger the King of the cliche? Is it possible for him to make a speech without starting with "I feel" and including the words "belief" and "be strong" in it.

Magnificent. Is that the first trophy Novigrad have won in Mr Chukka's lifetime?

Any Jose or Raimundo winds up in English and mumbles out some woeful attempt at English. Then UK commentators generally kick off with praise for their multilingual skills.

Cue Mozambique-born Portuguese Madrileno-management-flop Carlos Queiroz on Hong Kong ESPN (thanks Sopcast) running to appeal (pointlessly I feel) to the "fourth official" (pointless I feel) after a refereeing decision that outraged Man U while still one down against Blackburn Rovers.

CQ - "F u c k ing shame! That's a F u c k ing shame!"
FO - (moves into fourth-official-as-restraint-mode)

Cue commentator - "He's not been here long but he's managed to master the language! He He"

That would be since 2002 then - briefly popping to Real Madrid in between.


Meanwhile, I suspect the idea he was aiming at was actually closer to "F u c k ing disgrace" rather than a phrase synonymous with "What a pity!"



-- Edited by Golcar CC at 23:45, 2007-04-01

"We have to go out and beat Bangladesh, that's the first step and then we'll look at it from there," said England Coach Duncan Fletcher.

He believes England are very close to producing the kind of form which carried them to victory in the Commonwealth Bank Series tri-series in Australia.

"Somewhere along the line, we need the whole side to come together as a unit and everybody to put in a performance that we know we are capable of, and if we do that we know we're a dangerous side," Fletcher continued.

 

"It's mainly a mental thing, rather than a technical thing. It's how they think about it when they get out there in those crucial periods, but it's important we don't talk too much about it and cloud their thoughts."

England's bowling attack has been performing reasonably well and the chief concern at the moment is the lack of runs from skipper Michael Vaughan and Andrew Flintoff.

Vaughan is averaging only 13 in the tournament, and Fletcher said: "Heputs pressure on himself probably just , knowing as captain he has to go out there and get runs.

"I believe he is a good one-day batsman, but he has got to get back to realising his true potential."

 

Fletcher on auto-pilot.

-- Edited by El Presidente at 13:22, 2007-04-11

paichukka wrote:

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Post World Cup, I want to keep the cliches coming.

First question is: does "quick-fire" (as in "a quick-fire 38") convey anything that "quick" doesn't?

Next: when any batsman goes back to pull, does he necessarily "rock"?

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After being fortunate enough to have witnessed El Treasurio's recent quick-fire century, you would have indeed seen him rock onto the back foot and smash one right off the meat of the bat for a massive 6 over square leg that would have made Slogger green with envy. Believe me, it was quick-fire and he did indeed rock.

 

Referring to a one-handed catch, or attempt to catch, a firmly struck ball, the commentator will invariably let us know that they "either stick or they don't".

Is this the same as saying you "either catch it or you don't"?

Muppet wrote:

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One that's highly overused is "Well they all count."
Heard after any streakily-scored runs, e.g. if the batsman edges past the slips for four, or a cheeky bye is taken.

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Or as we say in Slovene, "Easy runs down there, Tom"

Sorry, how could I forget:

Prior, after debut ton at Lords, could have said: "Well, in the context of the game, I just razpich-kied the pich-ka out of the ball".

Bela Krajinians. Gotta love 'em!

-- Edited by El Treasurorio at 15:07, 2007-05-23