20100423 Let's Talk Baseball (1)

Let's Talk Baseball

Baseball has contributed more words to American English than any other sport

"Take me out to the ball game, take me out with the crowd..." goes the most popular song about baseball. And while enjoying a game, I wonder if I will be able to understand it. The sport of baseball uses a bewildering number of terms. The presminent baseball dictionary the Dickson Baseball Dictionary includes more than 10,000 entries. The world "hit" alone has more than 100 synonyms. With such a dizzying array of terms, baseball could indeed be its own language.


Take this sentence, for exaqmple: The jellbean corked the avocado, but instead of the expected dinger, it turned into a can of corn. For the uninitiated the sentence simply means: "The rookie (jellbean) hit (corked) the pitch that looked like it could be a home run (avocado). But instead of the expected home run (dinger), it turned into an easily caught fly ball (a can of corn)." Some baseball jargon can be more easily understood. When it's the "top of the seventh," the inning is just beginning. The "bottom of the seventh" would mean the second half of the inning. And when the "bases are loaded," there is a runner on each one.




bewilder v. 使迷惑/使糊塗
bewildering adj. 令人迷惑的/使人迷糊的
eg: The bewildering road signs got us lost so it took us a long time to get to the hotel.
=> 令人困惑的路標讓我們迷路了，所以我們花了很長時間才到旅館。

eminent adj. 傑出的
pre-eminent adj. 更為卓越的/最出類拔萃
eg: He's a pre-eminent authority in the field of bio-chemistry.
=> 他是生化學這個領域最傑出的權威人士。
eg: Harry feels so honored to be one of the pre-eminent scholar's students.
=> 能夠成為這位卓越的學者的門生之一，Harry 感到相當榮幸.

uninitiated adj. 缺乏經驗的
the uninitiated 缺乏經驗的人/門外漢
eg: His lecture is way too difficult for the uninitiated to understand.
=> 他的講課對於不熟悉這個領域的人來說實在是太困難了。
eg: This booklet is designed for the uninitiated.
=> 這本小冊子是為門外漢所設計的。



jargon 行話/黑話
inning 棒球的局數


//== Chat room ==//

Take me out to the ball game.
=> 美國的棒球國歌

seventh-inning stretch 第七局的伸懶腰
=> 美國棒球會在第七局有seventh-inning stretch，
=> 觀眾會利用這個時間起來伸伸懶腰
=> 主辦單位則會播放這首棒球國歌來帶動唱
=> 這是美國棒球圈的傳統