Both Alex Ferguson and have been very influential in English football, but they have also wielded influence on the English language as well.
The Oxford English Dictionary has issued its quarterly update and there has been a batch of football-related terms added.
As the puts it: ‘There’s a kicking off in November, and while the OED already covered a large number of football terms, from catenaccio to nutmeg to water carrier, this select batch of fifteen additions fills a few gaps in our formation.’
Among those 15 new additions are phrases that the former managers coined during their time in the Premier League.
Ferguson’s ‘squeaky bum time’ was first said by the Scot in 2003 and is still used on a regular basis near the end of games or tournaments.
The OED description reads: ‘A particularly tense period of time, esp. one leading up to the climax of a competition or event.’
The original quote from Fergie 19 years ago was: ‘They [Arsenal] have a replay against Chelsea and if they win it they would face a semi-final three days before playing us in the league. But then they did say they were going to win the Treble, didn’t they? It’s squeaky bum time and we’ve got the experience now to cope.’
Mourinho’s ‘park the bus’ has also made it into the dictionary, described as: ‘To play in a very defensive way, typically by having the majority of outfield players close to their own goal and showing little attacking intent.’
The new batch of footballing terms also includes a few foreign words adopted by the English language, such as rabona, tiki-taka, gegenpressing and trequartista, while Panenka also earns its place in the dictionary.
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