“It Is NOT A Big Ask, Or Is It?” The Language of Football Takes Over.

Footballers and managers regularly rush into print with their biographies. Of Tottenham players – Jermain Defoe, Gareth Bale, Robbie Keane and Ledley King have published books in recent years. All have used ‘ghost-writers’ to bring their humble words to life in a coherent and interesting style. Focused on football, the education of many young players suffered which quickly becomes apparent when they are presented to the  media in post-match interviews. This causes them to use the ‘language of football’ that they know best but it is now becoming part of the pundits’ vocabulary as well.

It Is NOT A Big Ask, Or Is It?

Ledley King’s Biography

International break week – time for a moan on a wider issue. It’s pretty apparent when you see them interviewed that most footballers had a limited education. Not their fault.  Like so many “normal” kids, the system has let them down. It is understandable that if you have a talent for sport at a young age, you are not going to voluntarily stay inside reading when you could be out practicing your ball skills. It does not have to be like that but we need parents and schools to ensure they do both and it often does not happen. So their vocabulary is often limited. We can therefore forgive them when they are interviewed on TV or radio and speak in simple terms. They are not Steven Fry and wouldn’t want to be.

However, expectations should change when it comes to being paid as pundits. Commentators and presenters have a responsibility to the viewers, in particular the hordes of youngsters who are learning to read and write and copy what they see on TV. The BBC has it written into the charter that it is their job to educate and entertain. Despite this they seem to encourage their presenters to appear semi-literate in a misguided attempt to be “down with the kids” or relate to the man in the street. This happens on sports programmes in particular (Match of the Day, Football Focus) but it is also happening on news programmes such as BBC Breakfast.

There is one phrase that seems to have spread like an epidemic and really grates on me like fingernails scraping down a blackboard. It is ‘a big ask’. It was probably used for the first time on TV by a footballer who didn’t know any better. Whenever they are talking about someone facing a difficult challenge, or a demanding task, they use this phrase instead.

I wanted to say that it is bad English, the sort of phrase you would expect an uneducated yob to use. I wanted to say that ‘Ask’ is not a noun. If you use it in this way, it just demonstrates your ignorance to anyone with even a basic education.  Worse still, it often sounds like they are saying “a big a*se”. For example. “Can Wayne Rooney hold on to his first team place at United? It’s a big a*se.” Well we know it is but a little extra weight in the nether regions is the least of his problems.  Whenever I hear a professional pundit use the phrase ‘a big ask’, I think “That’s what you are, a big a*se.” Steve Claridge on the Football League show and Andy Townsend on ITV’s Europa League programme must have both used it 5 times in less than half an hour. Gary Lineker, who is normally an excellent presenter, the presenters on BBC Breakfast, they are all at it. Isn’t there an executive at any of these stations with the authority, guts and sense of responsibility to get them to ban this awful expression from use by their official representatives? Parents and the education system have been failing our kids for a generation at least. There is no need for the TV companies to rub it in and make things worse.

I started the last paragraph with “I wanted to say” because on checking it out I discovered that I have already lost the battle on this one. ‘A big ask has already made it into the Cambridge Dictionary, amongst others;

Definition

• informal something you ask someone to do that will be difficult for them: It’s a big ask I know, but we need the project finished by June. Causing difficulties for oneself or others. Making appeals and requests.

(Definition of a big ask from the Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press)

It is apparently part of a process called ‘nouning’ that has been going on for centuries. As a phrase like this becomes popular, lexicographers have to decide when to include it in dictionaries and convey some form of official recognition on it. People like me who resist it are dismissed as pedants, usually old people with their head in the sand.

The argument supporting this view is that language is a living thing. It changes and evolves. This phrase was used on BBC Breakfast recently to justify a Devon council’s decision to stop using apostrophes on road signs.

So, having lost out on ‘a big ask’ can I at least plead for a bit of variety? Hearing the same phrase over and over becomes mind-numbing. The dictionary does list a number of alternative idioms and synonyms, for example, ‘a tall order’.

Now, please don’t let me get going on ‘a difficult watch’ another sports pundit favourite. What is that then? A watch with small numbers on the face?

HotspurHQ blog: Other books about Tottenham – highly recommended – Here