Summary
A NEW cliche - if it is possible to have such a thing - seems to have slipped into the football mix lately. It involves the words "for fun" which are worked into phrases such as: "He is scoring goals for fun," and the intention is to convey the impression that whoever is doing the scoring finds the whole thing so blindingly simple he can hardly avoid putting the ball in the net. This seems to be a follow-up to the long-time favourite used when a goal is scored - "And he doesn't miss these." A bit of a liberty that one, for quite often the scorer has spent the greater part of the game looking as if he couldn't hit a barn door from three feet.
Such phrases, while they probably make the people using them feel pretty switched on and smooth, don't really mean much, are usually incorrect and frequently give quite the wrong impression. To say someone scores for fun, for example, surely shouldn't be necessary. All footballers go mad when they score a goal. They run about like souls possessed, shedding clothes, pointing to unreadable messages scrawled on vests and getting themselves booked. Short of going to Disneyworld they couldn't ask for more fun. They're certainly not scoring to help them get a clearer perspective on the world's economic problems. As for the ones who never miss chances - they do, often and that's an end to it.See the full content of this document
Extract
A Slice of Life: Commentators Invent Cliches for Fun
Even the somewhat more staid golfing scene has its wordy pitfalls, usually on the greens where the commentators tend to greet putts holed from good distances by saying somethin...
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