Writing Guide #2
© 1981 by Ethel Grodzins Romm

A column on writing from Editor & Publisher January 31, 1981.

Heads-up sports verbs

The basic sport story is about someone losing and someone winning. In the past or future. To make that worth reading, sports writers and their editors have developed synonyms without end for win and lose. Still, working against a deadline,, we are likely to go with a handful of old favorites. A recent metropolitan sports page ran four headlines with outshoots and two with blanks The incompleat glossery below may be helpful in preventing such embarrassments.

These were gathered from the sports pages of several dailies, whose examples far outstrip the entries in various dictionaries and thesauruses of slang and sports language.

  • Avoid kill, murder, assault and the like. Those acts of mayhem may literally have taken place on the playing field.

  • Unless you're hoping to make a little extra change from the boo-boo column of Reader's Digest, take care with names that have other meanings: O'Rourke crucifies St. Paul.

  • These verbs might be profitably retyped in columns headed 3, 3+, 4, 4+ ..., with room for your own good ones. they are listed here more or less by count. Add one extra count for the sinular -s for: downs=5+

  • Passives can be powerful. There are few verbs meaning to lose. Use the passive coice to turn most transitive win verbs into lose: Hometowners are hogtied 3-0 This is as forceful as the active Visitors hogtie Hometowners 3-0.

  • Be precise. When the score is 4-2, the verb is not smash or slaughter, squeak or skunk.

    In the following lists, intransitive verbs are in bold; needs no object. Makes shortest head.

    WIN
    win, rip, nip, axe, bag, top, set, get, nail, lead, trim, beat, best, clip, down, dump, fell, lead, lick, post, sink, slam, whip, shine, score, upend, topple, defeat, subdue, sew up, outrun, deliver, advance, overhaul, overcome, outclass, pull off/down, outpoint, outfight, knock off/out/over, clinch title, turn back, polish off, advance on/over, nail down (a championship).

    BIG WIN
    zap, ruin, whip, skin, maul, drub, romp, rout, bury, blast, sting, whomp, scalp, crush, wallop, riddle, smack, whack, wreck, punish, roll to/over/past, thrash, squash, sweep, shellac, dazzle, plaster, clobber, explode, mop up, humble, burn up, overrun, trample, flatten, cakewalk, triumph, triumph over, humiliate, trounce, clean up, annihilate, emasculate, slaughter, pulverise, wipe out, mow down, massacre, bulldoze, steam-roll, disembowel, romp/bowl/trample over, overwhelm, overpower, embarrass, exterminate, walk/climb all over, give a plastering/shellacking/trimming, run/walk away with.
    CLOSE WIN
    nip, trim, clip, snip, edge, squeak, slither, hold off, eke/edge/nose out, outlast, stagger in, squeeze by/through, come from behind.
    SURPRISE WIN
    foil, hald, stun, stop, upset, upset, shock, stupify, surprise, roll/turn back, overturn, bring to a halt (a winning streak).
    EASY WIN
    push/walk over, coast past, romp/waltz/breeze in, romp/waltz home.
    PREVENT SCORING/dt>
    zip, ace, deny, sack, black, skunk, choke (off), shut off/out/down, hogtie, whitewash, paralyze, goose-egg, short-circuit, scuttle.
    TIE [ed verbs here need two subjects]
    tie, tie, draw, break even, stalemate, deadlock, (are in a) deadheat. Also: Even series at, break even with, deadlock with, etc.
    LOSE
    bow, fall, lose, tumble, lose out, nose dive, bow to, beaten by, (is) jinxed, (is) defeated, (is) knocked out/over/by and other passives.
    LOSE BY A LITTLE
    go down fighting, lose by a whisker, (is) edged, (is) trimmed, etc.
    FAIL TO SCORE (use suitable verbs from PREVENT SCORING listmade passive with optional is or are)
    draw a blank, lay a goose egg, (is) blanked, (is) blanked by, (is) shut off/out/down, etc.
    Ethel Grodzins Romm is a writer and editor currently living in New York City. She is the author of The Open Conspiracy: What America's Angry Generation is Saying (review) (auction with cover), several of the Strategies in Reading workbook series and others. She appeared in the film Paranormal: Science or Pseudoscience? She has written columns on language for Editor & Publisher, The American Bar Association Journal and many others. She is currently working on a book on management.

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