We’re getting back to normal, at our house.
We’re not constantly monitoring voting results, sometimes at three or four in the morning. Because, now we know who will be working in the Oval Office, beginning on Inauguration Day.
And after mentioning weeks ago, in the Daily Post, that I was going to write about professional athletes cussing in foreign languages during soccer games on TV… and then holding off on that, because way more important current events kept coming up… I’m finally getting back to soccer.
During the COVID-delayed start of the Major League Baseball and NFL seasons, and the resumption of professional basketball and hockey, I was watching soccer on TV. It was the only game in town, so to speak.
I know almost zilch about soccer – the rules of the game, and all – but I was desperate. And then, as I kept tuning into games, I began to realize what I’d been missing.
Soccer is fast-paced and exciting, with players racing up and down the field, and kicking the ball at incredible angles! Running at full speed, with their feet — and even using their head, sometimes — they propel the ball up and down, and sharply left and right, in every conceivable direction, somehow defying Newton’s Laws of Motion. So, I found myself getting a little hooked on soccer, I’ll admit.
I’m even finding something else fascinating, beyond laws of motion. With no pun intended, as they say, I’m getting a kick out of lipreading what athletes yell at each other, and at referees, during games.
Maybe like me, you sometimes do that, too. You try your hand at lipreading athletes’ swear words during baseball, basketball and hockey games. But with a considerable number of international teams competing in soccer, lipreading is, so to speak, a whole new ballgame.
I mean… what in the world are athletes cussing in their various languages? It’s hard to tell, sometimes.
When you see a baseball pitcher from Colorado about to, so to speak, throw an expletive at an umpire, lipreading is fairly easy. You see the pitcher’s mouth forming what appears to be an ‘Oh.’ And, from there, proceeding to a word beginning with an ‘S’ or ‘F,’ perhaps. Spotting an ‘S’ is somewhat more difficult lipreading than a word beginning with ‘F.’ Try it, sometime, looking in a mirror. Your bottom teeth tend to rise up toward you upper lip when you’re saying an F-word.
Say ‘funny’ when you’re looking in the mirror. You’ll see what I mean.
But when a soccer player from Lyon, France seems to be yelling ‘Oh putain,’ you’re wondering what the soccer player is talking about. Is ‘putain’ an expletive… or a dessert?
“Waiter! Please sprinkle some berries on my putain.”
If a soccer star from Bilbao, Spain seems to be shouting something like – ‘Oh mierda!’ – if you’re lipreading those words and you don’t know Spanish, the game’s over, so to speak. Mierda? That most definitely is a swear word? I looked it up. It’s nasty.
Lipreading a German soccer player’s expletive might be easier. If, after what appears to be the word – ‘Oh’ – you lipread what appears to be – ‘fricken’ – you can pretty much guess the meaning.
It’s so much easier lipreading expletives in English. After the word – ‘Oh’ – you just know the next word, probably, will be ‘f**##**!!!’ Especially if soccer players are really teed off.
So, who wins the expletives game? France? Spain? Germany?
Or, is America first?
Harvey Radin is former senior vice president in charge of corporate communications and media relations, Bank of America Western Region. He makes his home in Redwood City, CA.