I had a fun discussion with a former colleague, who was visiting London on a work trip and he dropped by for a drink or two, when I really got stuck.
He was telling me about his pet project: a film adaptation of a comic series, published by our company, when I realised I hadn’t heard of this comic series. So I asked for a plot summary. He provided:
A talented, handsome sportsman drifts into a relationship with an unhappy and lonely woman whose husband had been absent for some time. The sportsman has problems expressing himself so he handles everything in life roughly. He speaks harshly when he speaks at all. He’s fallen in love with the married woman, but she’s afraid of him because of his rough manners. It doesn’t help that she’s keenly aware that he has a reputation for being violent (on pitch). More frustrated he gets, more afraid she becomes of him, which in turn makes her more emotionally distant towards him, which prompts him to react even more aggressively in trying to get her to understand that he’ll never hurt her. It’s a gradual spiral into darkness that ends with an incident that drastically affects their lives.
I replied, “Oh, that sounds so much like This Sporting Life.”
After receiving a questioning look, I explained that author David Storey wrote a novel that was hailed as one of the best angry young men novels of the 1960s, and it was adapted for the screen, starring Richard Harris and Rachel Roberts. I had a DVD so he agreed to watch it during one evening this week. After a moment, he asked: “What is ‘this sporting life’?”
I was about to answer with confidence when I realised I didn’t know. After banging my brain around, I had to admit I was stumped.
It’s really odd because I heard that phrase quite often throughout life, but exactly what does it mean? I really don’t know. I mean, I often heard some said, “Ah, this sporting life…” when responding to something like an unexpected fight or you know, something that flared up so unexpectedly. I thought that perhaps they meant it in sense of “life can be such a battlefield” or “this dangerous life”, but I’m not so sure now.
Especially after I had a look at all sorts of dictionaries and found that none of them suggests ‘danger’ for ‘sporting’. In fact, most associate it with pleasure, which is something I wouldn’t even consider. Oxford Dictionary has this entry:
sporting
Pronunciation:/?sp??t??/
adjective
I have heard both of those, but I thought there would be another. It makes me wonder if the people who used ‘ah, this sporting life’ was thinking of the film itself? Rather than as an idiom that’s disappeared with time? Or did I misunderstand all this time, that it was intended as a sarcastic remark? I suspect I misunderstood.
Anyroad, I finally told the colleague this as my final answer: “A life of chance, or ‘this risky life’”, which I think is the nearest to the meaning of ‘this sporting life’. Whether I’m right, I haven’t the foggiest. I promised I would email him the correction if I was wrong.
I’m now wondering what other phrases, idioms and colloquialisms that I’m familiar with but couldn’t offer an explanation on the meaning.
I can only think of four five so far:
- “Want not, waste not.” – this drives me crazy because while I do understand what it means, it looks and sounds so odd. “Don’t waste it if you don’t want it”?
- “Wash your neck!” – as in “Be prepared to die!” In contemporary sense, it’s “Don’t lie!” As in “you’ll die if you tell another lie.” I like to think it’s to do with the good old days of beheading the guilty, but after googling like mad, there’s nothing to back it up so I’m not so sure.
- “Six ways to Sunday” – thoroughly, completely, totally, etc., but why six and why Sunday?
- “There’s nowt as queer as folk” – I do understand what it means, but how to explain? Wiktionary offers an explanation: “Nothing is as strange, as odd as people can be.” I understood it as “Some people can be so strange, but that’s life,” but am I right? I’m not even sure.
- “Fare thee well!” — I always understood it as “good bye” or “farewell” with a lavish touch. It’s easy to guess that it’s along the line of “I wish you well!” as in “May luck be with you [while you travel]“. How else does it evolve to ‘farewell’? And yet, it seems to carry a completely different meaning for some people overseas: ‘perfection’ or ‘perfection with a flourish’. It’s the latter that stumps me. It doesn’t make sense. How does ‘fare thee well’ come to mean ‘perfection’?
I’ve always heard/used this one as “Waste not, want not” so it means don’t waste something, and then you won’t want for (i.e. lack) it. It’s an archaic meaning of “want.”
It’s a Yorkshire/Lancashire expression, I think. It means “There’s nothing as odd as people” i.e. human beings can be strange.
I’ve never come across that meaning.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/fare-thee-well
fare-thee-well
(fâr-wl)
n.
1. A condition of utmost perfection: played the part of the martyr to a fare-thee-well.
2. The most extreme degree: beat his opponent in the match to a veritable fare-thee-well.
It’s pretty rare these days but I used to see it a lot.
“I understood it as “Some people can be so strange, but that’s life,” but am I right? I’m not even sure.”
A simpler way of saying it is “Truth is stranger than fiction”.
““Don’t waste it if you don’t want it”?”
As Laura says, it’s ‘want’ in the sense of ‘lack’, not ‘desire’. Not that archaic, since we use expressions like “for the want of something, something failed.”
Of course, this was the confusion – deliberate or otherwise – which brought David “Two Brains” Willetts low:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2000/jun/05/features11.g22
I still don’t get the connection, though. How is fare-thee-well connected to ‘perfection’ or ‘perfect finishing touch’?
Truth is stranger than fiction: this makes much more sense. Now I get it. Thanks for this one.
I completely forgot about want/lack, which is embarrassing when we consider the fact I frequently use “[personal pronoun] found it wanting.” (What was my brain all these years?!)
I’m still laughing over that anecdote. He can be such a prat, but that was a fun article. Thanks for the link, and for explaining so clearly. Much appreciated.
I completely forgot about want/lack. Now it makes sense. Also, the fact I got it the wrong way round? *sheepish grin*
I’ve never come across that meaning.
I first came across it in a Sherry Thomas book two years ago:
— (Chapter one of Private Arrangements I would give you a page number, but it’s a digital book. Just in case, it’s 26th (digital) page.)
I was so confused that I found some guts to email Sherry Thomas. She explained that she learnt it from a Judith Ivory book (I think she said it was Beast).
I don’t think I’ve ever heard this one, but it reminds me of that thing about making sure you always wear clean, new underwear, because, what if you had an accident and had to be taken to hospital and people saw your old, holey pants? Might it be the same principle… wash your neck, make sure if you die the undertaker won’t think you’re nasty and dirty?
What an enjoyable post!
I think I always assumed that the book was called This Sporting Life after the Sporting Life paper. I worked in a papershop when I was a teenager and there were a few punters who got the Sporting Life on a Saturday. I don’t know if it still exists. Anyway, from reading your post, I think maybe there is some older expression that’s being referenced.
I was really disappointed to reach the comments and not be able to get credit for “waste not, want not” first. Sigh. You snooze, you lose, as they also say.
I remember reading that fare-thee-well line in the Sherry Thomas and in the Ivory too – can’t say I’ve ever heard it anywhere else myself. I like it though.
‘Six ways to Sunday’ I love but haven’t got a clue about.
You know what one drives me crazy? I could(n’t) care less. I would NEVER say ‘I could care less’ – it doesn’t make any sense to me, whereas, ‘I couldn’t care less’ makes perfect sense. I.e. I care so little it would be impossible to care less than I care right now. What is ‘I could care less’ supposed to mean?
“Six ways to Sunday” — Maybe because there are six other days in the week? It’s the only connection I can think of, unless it was just a random number that sounded good because of the alliteration.