Huckleberries Online

PDX Pup: ‘Punched Their Ticket? Arrgh

Posted by DFO

March 19, 2009 2:12 p.m. • 15 comments

If there is any phrase I’m about ready to gag on if I ever see/hear it again, it’s any phrase related to the punching of tickets. Talk about a tired metaphor! Seriously, get a new schtick sports people. The kids nowadays? They don’t punch tickets so much; they typically pay a cover and get their hand stamped. Or they pay a cover and get a plastic cup. I must’ve heard read the phrase “so and so punched their ticket…” like 100 times this past week and it was old after about the first 3 times I heard it. Also tired? Analysts defending the omission of schools with better records and RPI’s in favor of 8th place team from “BCS” conferences because they play a tougher conference schedule. Nut up, NCAA and analysts. Patty Mills and St. Mary’s could smoke Arizona any day of the week, and twice on Sunday if you lined it up/PDX Pup. More here.

Question: Which metaphor or cliche do you dread hearing the most now that March Madness is upon us?

15 comments on this post so far. Add yours!

JBelle on March 19 at 4:37 p.m.
uh, yeah. That’s “Paddy” Mills, as in the Gaelic Patrick. Doggies. I thought you Irish knew this stuff.
christywoolum on March 19 at 4:47 p.m.
“Cinderella story” and ” the slipper fits”.
Sam on March 19 at 4:49 p.m.
I think there may be more cliches in sports journalism more than anything else, though there’s plenty in the government news, too.

We’re just taking it one game at a time.

We gave it 110 percent.

He gave it his all.

The crowd factor (and the clock factor, X-factor, experience factor, etc. etc.)

We proved we were the better team.

There’s hundreds.

I’ve always wanted a sports journalist, when a player or coach talks about “taking it one game at a time,” to ask if they’ve ever taken it three games at a time.
Sam on March 19 at 4:50 p.m.
Cool, there’s even a Web site for sports cliches!

http://www.sportscliche.com/
JamesBond on March 19 at 4:58 p.m.
The “Cinderella” label, including references to the “slipper” fitting, has been branded and institutionalized to the point that it no longer really means anything. When the tournament starts selling and marketing itself around the idea that a big upset is a key thing, you’ve got problems.

I wish Charles Barkley commentated on the Dance, because he always tells it like it is.
KevinTaylor on March 19 at 5:03 p.m.
The Dance
hmoffsuite on March 19 at 5:14 p.m.
Bond. >> “I wish Charles Barkley commentated on the Dance, because he always tells it like it is.”

He just got out of the pokey for his dwi down here in Scottsdale. Did you hear what he told the cops when they stopped him? He told it like it is.
cantyoureadthesigns on March 19 at 11:31 p.m.
The Cinderella story, this unknown, comes out o’ nowhere to lead the pack…Master’s Champion:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bg8lSyGavc4

IN what used to be actually the TV news, the worst cliche line I hear nowadays is “Some people say…” Hey, if they’re just random “some” people on the street, I really don’t care what they say, or trust it. Read the Inlander’s 2nd page in “man on the street”, it’s pretty bad as far as politics or public policy, ignorant, really.

However, most of the “some people say” BS identifies NO ONE at all, and is merely a way of asserting public interest/opinion in something that doesn’t actually exist, to push their own agenda or manufacture a controversy where none exists.

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D.F. Oliveria is a columnist and blogger for The Spokesman-Review. Huckleberries Online was judged the best 2008 Idaho newspaper blog by the Idaho Press Club. And the best 2007 news blog in the Pacific Northwest by the Society for Professional Journalist. Print Huckleberries is a past winner of the Herb Caen Memorial Column contest by the National Association of Newspaper Columnists. The Readership Institute of Northwestern University cited this blog as a good example of online community journalism.