I learnt some 'everyday words' in this manner at the footy! (Jeff Hook image)
I decided to ask the same of my twitter followers and I was overwhelmed with the response I got! The discussion eventually skewed into footy sayings and even made up footy words, but for the purpose of this post I’ve included only everyday words which can be used independently from football.
I grew up listening to these 'wordsmiths.' Sandy, Pete and Don.
Below is the list of 103 everyday words that my twitter followers and me have football to thank for.
The words were able to broken into a few different categories, and a few of the stronger groups of words were;
Medical terms – Anterior, Cruciate, Hyper-extended, Ligament, Medial, Peptide (x2), Rupture, Sub-laxed, Navicular,
Corporate terms- Equalisation, Merger, Rationalisation
Footy Player Adjectives – Disinterested, Dour, Goer, Laconic, Lackadaisical, Mercurial, Mongrel, Opportunist, Prodigious, Tagger
Match Results – Annihilated, Boilover, Belting, Cakewalk, Hiding, Shellacking,
Kick descriptors – Wormburner, Soccered, Punt, Prodigious, Mongrel,
An old fashioned fight! – Brouhaha, Melee, Clash, Fracas,
As it ended up, melee was mentioned more than any other word, and a personal favourite was ‘stalwart,’ a word I certainly know firstly because of the footy!
Thanks to @Harri_Chas_17 @NABFW @SteveHealyyy @4boat @MarkDuffett @PaulErickson @ten_apples @AndrewGigacz @SirSuaveTheCat @APH1991 @cweaver1993 @HawkNinja76 @iamtheoracle @BumtownVic @roachy01 @JRRivett @DamianWhite42 @benno_76 @TheBlackCat1859 @Martin_Sanna @ossienet @M_1tch @Dgen717 @PaulMavroudis @Andrew_SaysSo @STaylor9891 @Tigers_Of_Old & @cade_e whose nominations made the cut. Sorry to everyone else who contributed but it was fun all the same. A special mention does go to @nervous_twittch who nominated ‘Porplyzia!’
It was heaps of fun guys. May football continue to educate both young and old!
PLEASE add any words you have footy to thank for in the comments section!
The Holy Boot's Football Emporium 
Great Blog, what about screamer and corky just of the top of my head, and I know its not exclusive to our great game but I reckon I was using the word Oval before I started school thanks to footy. Off your topic here but because we sometimes sat in the old stand at Richmond, your uncle could spell R-I-C-H-M-O-N-D before he could spell C-A-T.
Father (of) Boot
(Just thought of Herringbone)
Raking as in raking left foot kick. Eg John Holt
John, another beaut blog, teasing out the lexicon and neoglisims (is that the word?) of footy. Apologies no tweet from me – spotted this wordy campaign late and thought to jot some down, but got waylaid.
Where’s the ‘flood’?
My particular fondness is for words the game has lent our language, such as barrack and shepherd and handball and outer. Many of the field positions also are unique to Australian rules. I think rugby had a ruck and soccer has a full-back and wingman, but neither has a rover, ruck-rover, half-forward flanker, nor all implied limitations of a back-pocket. Is a full-forward unique to our game? What about a ‘behind’? No other game has a ‘premiership quarter’, no other sport has such a glorious affliction as the ‘Colliwobbles’ (coined after 1970 GF).
It’s a funny old game, football. Thanks again for this beaut blog – it was a chaos ball for all who love to think about the way we think about our game.
TTBB (aka Dugald)
Love this list. I read through it and felt like I had just listened to a whole season of footy on the radio. Thought of some omissions; daisycutter, torpedo, calico, liniment, arthroscope, squib, rainmaker and my favourite (bring it back!) utility.
Although I well and truly knew the word banana since my young days, football has certainly reinforced the word since. In fact football kept the word banana in the van when we lost our banana crops (went missing under pressure) during recent storms up north. Hey, in what other sport do you get to kick a banana. Because of my age I can also nominate flick, stab and gluepot.
Father Boot
Love it! I would like to add ‘follower’ which was how the ruckmen were referred to on the team list. And also the good old ‘donnybrook’ (can’t we have just one of those a season?).
While not single words i was always fascinated by ‘Grandstand player’ and ‘Champagne football’.
That’s it, i’m done.
Bulldog boy