Tag archives: football
The Great British Summer of sport: 6 topical posts you won’t want to miss
Regardless of heat or sunshine, the Great British Summer has now truly arrived. If you’re outdoors playing sports, or indoors watching them, here are a few of our game, set, or match-related blog posts to keep you full of fun facts. 1. Anyone for tennis? Whether you were on team Murray or team Federer, this [...]
Of game changers and moving goalposts – football idioms in the English language
Football (or soccer, for avoidance of doubt) is one of those odd sports that tend to polarize: you either love it or you hate it. No matter whether you’re a lover or a hater, you will come across plenty of football-related idioms in everyday life. This is not in the least surprising, considering that The [...]
The language of the beautiful game (just don’t mention the S-word)
With the European Football Championships little more than a month away, if you are an England fan, you’d be forgiven for feeling a little concerned. England’s best player is suspended, the former captain is due to face trial in July, and the new manager has been in place for less than a week. If being [...]
Goals galore but no parrots: a hundred-word football vocabulary
Fabio Capello, the Italian-born England football manager, was recently reported as saying that he could manage his players with just one hundred words of English. At the time there was much speculation as to which hundred words he would need to achieve this, and the BBC contacted Oxford Dictionaries for a list of the [...]
Blog categories
- Competitions and quizzes (26)
- Dictionaries and lexicography (116)
- English in use (303)
- Grammar and writing help (58)
- Interactive features (46)
- OED Appeals (4)
- Other languages (50)
- Varieties of English (28)
- Word origins (156)
- Word trends and new words (93)