10 phrases in English with their roots in the sport of boxing

Boxing. To some, it deserves its traditional label of the ‘noble art’. To others, it’s licensed savagery out of place in the modern world. Whichever view you take, it’s hard to disagree with the noted British sports journalist James Lawton, who wrote: “Always brutal, often bloody, and occasionally lethal, boxing has inspired some of the greatest writers and film-makers in history, and produced more legends than any other sport.” It has also left its mark on the language, too, so let’s look at ten phrases that have their roots in the fight game.

Alternatives to Latin words and phrases

I have a presentation I give sometimes about writing English in a legal context, and one of the pieces of advice I offer in it is to avoid Latin words where possible. It makes legal writing sound more complicated than it needs to be, rarely a good thing in my view. Research shows that clients don’t like it. Sometimes there may be a case for sticking to Latin with terms of art (maybe that’s one for a future blog post), but for now I’ll just look at phrases which have perfectly serviceable everyday English alternatives. I can’t see any reason for not using the English versions. Below is a list of ten to be getting on with.

Compare to and compare with

Fairly recently, someone asked me which of these forms is correct. The answer is that they both are. They mean different things, though, so I thought I’d take a look at how they should be used properly.