Have a ball with idioms during the Fifa World Cup

Since the season’s flavour is football, it is a good idea to look at some words and expressions which have bounced off the pitch into the English dictionary with idiomatic usage to embellish the language.

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‘Football? It’s the beautiful game’. That’s how, in a nutshell, the game has been popularised by its greatest name so far, Pele, in his autobiography My Life and the Beautiful Game.

Since the season’s flavour is football, it is a good idea to look at some words and expressions which have bounced off the pitch into the English dictionary with idiomatic usage to embellish the language. Idioms are words or phrases having meanings that are culturally understood and are different from the usual meanings of their constituent words. Quite often they may also be referred to as figures of speech, proverbs or sayings. They are easy on ears, make your writing conversational and add a dash of style.

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Football is a game of concentration and split-second decisions. So, be on the ball means to be alert to what is happening and be able to take quick decisions. To use it in a sentence: As the team leader you must be on the ball towards the progress of the project and go for a course correction if needed.

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Another idiom with a different construction but similar meaning is to keep one’s eye on the ball, whereas to keep one’s eye off the ball will have an exactly opposite meaning. For example, you can’t keep your eyes off the ball when your exams are approaching. You have to prioritise studies above everything else.

When someone accidentally scores a goal for the team she is playing against, it is called scoring an own goal or a self-goal. It is frequently used figuratively outside the football field. So, if someone’s action has harmed her own interest, she has scored an own goal. She scored an own goal by asking such a high salary that no employer could afford her.

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To move/shift the goalpost is another idiom with football imagery which is used to describe a situation where somebody changes the rules and requirements to gain an advantage or to make things difficult for others involved in executing a work or achieve a goal.

Kick-off and kick off, first a noun (with a hyphen) and second a phrasal verb, find widespread usage in the English language. Kick-off is the moment when a football match starts. So, if you kick off something, you get the ball rolling. The party kicked off its election campaign with a mega rally in Delhi, or a solo singing performance got the ball rolling on the night of cultural show. Kick off is used in a few more different contexts.

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How many times have you seen the referee blowing the whistle calling out a bad or dangerous tackle during a match? Often, for sure. So, to blow the whistle on someone or something refers to a situation when someone who is doing some wrong or something which is illegal is brought out in the open. For example, an employee finally found the courage to blow the whistle by telling the press that the fast food company he was working for used animal fat in vegetarian products.

There is a treasure trove of idioms out there. Go checking and make your writing as beautiful as the game of football. And, by the way, did you spot the idiom in the headline?

Wordly Wise is a weekly column by Amitabh Ranjan published every Saturday in the Explained section. Please tweet your feedback to @ieexplained

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