As a card-carrying member of the word nerd club, I can report that English has long been hooked on card games.
asserted
English → carry → games
Whether we hold the upper hand, pass the buck or offer a bargaining chip, our deck is stacked with table talk.
asserted
deck → hold → talk
Stacked in spades, with recent years only upping the ante.
asserted
years → stack → ante
Blame Trump, I guess.
asserted
I → blame → Trump
But that’s too simple a game, though trump (the verb) is Exhibit A, a corruption of triumph.
asserted
trump → ’ → triumph
The pastime fostered the idea of a trump card being your winning edge, the deal-clincher.
asserted
card → foster → idea
Grand as that sounds, I love how NZ slang during WWI called anyone in authority, typically a cocky middle manager, as trump of the dump.
asserted
slang → sound → dump
Staying with US politics, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal offered a clean slate of social and economic reforms where tax revenue was above board – a further card-game borrowing.
asserted
revenue → stay → board
Despite that, any new deal will leave some citizens in the lurch, a phrase from cribbage.
asserted
deal → leave → cribbage
Lurch refers to an emphatic win where you “street” your opponent by more than twice their score.
asserted
you → refer → score
(Bear in mind that street is the column of peg-holes on a cribbage board, and nothing to do with Pennsylvania Avenue.)
asserted
street → bear → Avenue
As for lurch, dictionary sleuth Michael Quinion suspects “lurz werden” to be the source, the German phrase meaning to become short.
asserted
werden → suspect → lurch
At the stadium, table games and sport also meld, another verb drawn from the pack, canasta this time.
asserted
games → meld → pack
In tennis, the US Open wraps the calendar of grand slams – a term via the bridge club.
asserted
Open → wrap → club
Just as we’re entering showdown season in football.
asserted
we → enter → football
Poker on this occasion, when all the bluff and bluster is done, the stakes are high, demanding all players to lay down their hands, the showdown a sort of facing up.
asserted
showdown → do → hands
All games, of course, must be played according to Hoyle, the original stickler for due process who published a whist manual in 1742, followed by A Short Treatise on Backgammon.
uncertain
who → play → Backgammon
Though many AFL fans are still pondering why their code followed suit of baseball and gridiron by introducing wildcards in September.
asserted
code → ponder → September
Presuming Collingwood and Carlton even qualified for the American term, let alone the finals proper.
asserted
Collingwood → presume → term
Falling short of the traditional cut-off, where the top-eight model tends to snub teams coming ninth and tenth, the so-called wildcards seem more hard-luck stories redeemed rather than invitees “from organisers to join a tournament or playoff berth” as per Wikipedia.
asserted
wildcards → fall → Wikipedia
I get the value of packing the MCG for two bonus “games of consequence”, to quote AFL chief executive Andrew Dillon, wresting back the free weekend NRL once monopolised.
asserted
NRL → get → weekend
As much as English adores cards, let’s call a spade a spade.
asserted
’s → adore → spade
The rummy import is a euphemism for also-ran, and next year – if the chips are down – I trust North Melbourne can somehow earn a place at the table rather than being left in the lurch.
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asserted
Melbourne → trust → inbox
The absurd quest to name colours
- How a regional Instagram account is recording the latest entrants in the Aussie lexicon
- Out of the box: The grammatical nightmare keeping me awake
- Are you using the latest slang or are you just reheating nachos?
- The catchy nature of viral names
asserted
you → name → names
The Aporia
