I love words. I’m always up to learn new ones. I thought I might learn a new one today when I was listening to WGN Radio. Judy Markey was talking about hearing a word that she had never heard before. She’d read it in a newspaper earlier this week, and then one of the sports announcers covering the Cubs game, Tuesday night, used it. The word was “scrum.”
Dictionary.com defines scrum as:
A play in Rugby in which the two sets of forwards mass together around the ball and, with their heads down, struggle to gain possession of the ball.
Or: A disordered or confused situation involving a number of people.
I knew the sports definition for “scrum,” but I didn’t know it had a non-sports connotation. The announcer was describing the mob on Waveland Avenue outside Wrigley Field in Chicago. As a home run was hit over the walls of the field into their midst, he said a scrum of people reached for the ball.
DH says scrums are what you get when you eat crackers in bed. (rolling eyes) That might be the last time I read my blog to him.
Arrrgh!!!
It's just my state of mind!
Heh, a rugby scrum is truely a yummy-scrummy thing to behold! 😉
…and can I mention the rugby world cup starts tomorrow (friday)…the usa play their first match on the 15th (against fiji)…and england *will* win the whole tournament on the 22nd november…nothing like over-confidence :^)…nice to see you learning words that are common place in ingerland :^)…now, you might start to realise the probs we have with obscure american expressions – like “a rain check”???…what’s that all about…I assume that it means “not turn up for a date”…but why :^)…
It’s gotta be a mob scene, Amber! lol
Billy, usually we use the term “rain check” for items. For instance, when a grocery store is out of stock on a sale, it will give you a rain check, and you can pick up one later for that sale price.
I’m sure that urban people ask for rain checks for luncheons and meetings, and perhaps dates, but usually it’s just a way of indicating that you’d like to schedule something later. It does not imply that you can skip a date without warning.
Personally, I think that English English is much more obscure than American English. After all….you’ve had so much more time to become obscure! *WEG*
I would never have guessed what scrum meant.
I thought ants were what you get when you eat crackers in bed!