Roots
Cricket fever
Deepti

SPONGE like, language absorbs words from every facet of human experience and often the absorption is so effective that the user does not even think of the word’s origins. The connotative metaphor gets so well worn that it becomes the denotation itself. For instance, one does not remember the sport origin of words like ‘aim, goal’ or expressions like ‘tackling a problem’.

Specific games have also contributed to the lexicon generously. Cricket is responsible for many an expression like ‘it’s not cricket’ when something is not fair or honourable. Those who have had a good and successful life are said to ‘be on a good wicket’ with ‘a fair innings’. A difficult situation is like being on a ‘sticky wicket’, perhaps alluding to the problems of a rain-soaked pitch. Similarly, astonished or losing people are labelled ‘caught out’ or ‘stumped’.

In cricket-friendly Australia, anything unacceptable or unrealistic is ‘over the fence’, like the poor bowler’s unfortunate ball that bags a sixer for the batting side. Similarly, a person taken aback by something is ‘hit for a six’. In Aussie football, a goal is often called a ‘sixer’, thereby meaning a ‘kick worth six points’.

Falconry, a medieval sport, is responsible for the word ‘reclaim’ that means ‘to retrieve or recover’. It comes from the Latin reclamare, which is made up of re or ‘back’ and clamare or ‘to shout’. Reclaiming referred to the practice of calling the bird back from flight, accomplished through the lure that was a special pipe, constructed for this task. ‘Lure’ originates from the German luder, meaning ‘bait’. Today, if you lure someone, you provide the bait to entice him or her into doing something.

The verb ‘pounce’ also comes from this sport as ‘pounce’ referred to the talons of the falcon. Jousting (another medieval sport in which two knights on horseback fought with lances) is no longer in vogue but the word ‘jousting’ lives on in the forgotten figurative sense of ‘a struggle for supremacy’. To ‘throw the gauntlet’ also originated from the tradition of the jousting knight throwing a glove to challenge the opponent.