Business – it’s all about your sports vocab
English is a hard language – spelling and phonetics aside, the English language is rife with idioms. And it’s not uncommon for native English speakers to use these phrases in normal contexts, business settings, etc. Japanese, for example, has a bunch of idioms as well, but they’re a bit more “proverbial,” so to speak. How many times have you been in a situation, whether it be class, work or even the home and someone used the term “drop the ball,” which is clearly a basketball reference. Or, “slam dunk” to describe a good deed, confident undertaking, etc.? The problem is these interpretations aren’t cross cultural, and more and more non-Americans (probably best to restrict this to American English) are finding it hard to communicate in such contexts. There is an article in the Courier Journal that talks all about sports talk in global business.
…it must cause foreigners to wonder what Americans are smoking when they throw around baseball in a business context, such as “throwing smoke.” “Around the horn” has nothing to do with cargo shipping. “Pickles” don’t come from a Vlasic jar. “Chin music” doesn’t come from an iPod, and “ringing someone up” has nothing to do with a phone. Ethanol doesn’t come from a “can of corn,” nor a “dying quail” from bird flu.
Even the way certain terms might pop up in both countries, but have completely different meanings creates a slew of problems in itself.
…Nor is there a sports term that helps Europeans understand “manufacturing a run.” However, some baseball terms have synonyms in other sports. For example, a “googly” is not a search engine, but a bowl (pitch) in cricket that bounces in front of the batter’s feet.
Now American executives might see this as an opportunity for the batter to “take one for the team,” but the cricket batter must defend the wicket at all costs and, therefore, swing at balls that baseball players would let go. Americans, therefore, who hear the word googly at a business meeting can translate it into a curve ball.
It’s a long article, but interesting read.