Jetshing's Blog

Whilst football is popular all over the world there is another sport, not so well known, that obsesses the British, particularly during the summer months, known as cricket. To Americans the game is a mystery but in fact it isn???t really that different from baseball, though cricket and baseball fans would probably disagree with me. In both games a skillful player knows how to put a spin on the ball. This has entered everyday English. When somebody puts a spin on something they change the way we look at it. This is often done by politicians, who want us to believe their mistakes are actually their triumphs. They will put a positive spin on events. Their rivals of course will try to put a negative spin and many important politicians now employ spin doctors who act as senior advisors.

However a remark that is essentially British is to say: ???It???s just not cricket??? whenever a situation occurs in life that seems unfair. If we are playing on a sticky wicket we are playing on a wet and difficult pitch. This has come to mean any difficult or embarrassing situation. Similar, in fact, to an expression taken from football which we use when some competitors have unfair advantage over others.
???Developing nations may face an uneven playing field in international trade???
???We want to create a level playing field where all the competitors operate under the same rules???

If a cricket player scores nothing he is out for a duck. Why a duck? This is probably because a duck???s egg is shaped like a zero. In tennis when a player has no points we say love. So if the two Williams sisters were playing each other the score in a particular game might be:
Serena 30, Venus love. Why love? Again it???s the egg. Tennis originated in France and most people think ???love??? comes from the French word for an egg,???L???oeuf “. It sounds similar and over time the French word morphed into the British word.

There are lots of words for the figure ???0??? in English.

In mathematics we would say ???nought??? in British English whilst the Americans would say ???zero???.

If we were telling someone our telephone number we would say ???oh??? like the letter ???O???.
???My telephone number is 08427706. (oh eight four two double seven oh six)???

When we are talking about temperatures both Americans and British people say ???zero???.
???It will be very cold tonight. The forecast says it will be ten degrees below zero!???

In team games like football no score is called “nil” in the UK and “zero” or “nothing” in the US.
???It was a great game on Saturday and the final score was Everton three Chelsea nil???

Although ???nought??? is used in British English to describe ???zero??? there is another word ???naught??? with the same pronunciation which also means nothing but in the sense of having no success.
???All my efforts came to naught???
Perhaps this form is not used very much these days and it can seem rather old fashioned. However it is interesting because “naughty” and “naught” are related as the original meaning of a “naughty child” was a “good for nothing child”.