Not. A. Verb.

[littlebitca]

Dear Sportscasters:

You are professionals. And regardless of the current usage by the cool kids, 'podium' is Not. A. Verb.

No love,

Me

Comments

[blue_ant]

See, your problem is that you give them too much credit. They aren't professionals. They try to pass themselves off as professionals, but enough of them are former athletes that those that USED to be professionals have forgotten what that meant.

[atpolittlebit.livejournal.com]

Heh. True. Make that "supposed to be professionals." Makes me appreciate Dick Button.

[blue_ant]

Makes me appreciate Dick Button.
How is that even POSSIBLE?

HEE.

Also, how'd they use the word "podium" .. I couldn't figure it out.

[atpolittlebit.livejournal.com]

Well, Dick Button does speak more or less proper English.

"She's hoping to podium in these games..."

[blue_ant]

Okay, he does do that. Even if he doesn't usually make sense! I'm so glad I watched the pairs on CBC this afternoon.

"She's hoping to podium in these games..."
I honestly don't have the words. I ... I'm at a total loss.

[(Anonymous)]

@>)

The scary thing is, once I read it in context, I knew exactly what it meant!

although now that i think of it...

[(Anonymous)]

...why is it any worse than "She's hoping to medal"? Not that I like that any better, but it seems to be accepted.

[bhadrasvapna.livejournal.com]

It's snowboarding. Dude. What do you expect? Who else to tell us what the prison run aways are doing?

[atpolittlebit.livejournal.com]

They're comboing.

[cactuswatcher.livejournal.com]

I podium, dude.
you podium, dude.
we podium, dude.
he, she or it podiums, dude.

I think it means doing a triple flip to a sitz.

Oh, well what can you expect from a sport that has 'fakey' as a technical term?

[atpolittlebit.livejournal.com]

I'm still being amused that there's an Olympic uniform that manages to look like baggies and an oversized jersey. Heh. And the one commentator who keeps pronouncing "airs" with kinda-two sylllables so it sounds like "errors" as in "that's two huge errors back-to-back." But then, I'm easily amused.

[zargon10.livejournal.com]

What's weird in Dutch is most things are verbs. 'To play tennis' is 'tennissen'. 'to do sports' is 'sporten'. though i was very surprised to learn last night 'to take a test' (test=toets, tests=toetsen) is, you guessed it 'toetsen'. that just sounds so wrong to me! any noun you have in dutch has a verb with it!

[dlgood.livejournal.com]

Sportscastering is a very amusing enterprise. People are trying to seem clever by not saying the same thing all the time, and by having there own lingo. This often leads to some crimes against language.

[(Anonymous)]

@>)

This usage was discussed in the language segment (http://wnyc.org/shows/lopate/episodes/02152006) of WNYC's Leonard Lopate show today, w/word maven Patricia T. O'Conner (yes, that's how it's spelled). It's the 1st segment listed when you scroll down.