In this episode I interview John Taylor, sports fanatic from Chesterfield, Derbyshire, England about idioms in British English Language which have been taken from sports terminology. Many people use phrases such as 'to get on the front foot' without realising where that idiom originated. Boxing is surprisingly rich in having generated such idioms that are now used in regular speech such as, 'down and out', to 'throw in the towel', to 'throw your hat into the ring', or to be 'saved by the bell'.

In American English, the same processes have taken place, with business and accounting language, for example, being particularly rich in expressions from baseball, in particular, such as to 'step up to the plate,' to be asked for a 'ball park figure' or to 'play hard ball'.

This episode will be of interest to anyone with a love of sport or language who wants to know more about the origins of commonly used phrases - their etymology - the history of words - and to philologists who like to examine texts and oral language use and to sociolinguists who might answer the question why more cricketing terms are used idiomatically than football ones.

You are invited to contact John Lawton by email [email protected] or via LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/john-scott-lawton