Skip to main content

The Meaning of Headlines: 'the gloves are off' - FIFA





Online Vice News reported information on the FIFA corruption situation with a headline, 'The Gloves Are Off, the Die Is Cast, Tyrants Will Fall: FIFA's Jack Warner Speaks' on June 4, 2015. What do the phrases 'the gloves are off' and 'the die is cast' mean? 

The article is about former senior FIFA official, Jack Warner, promising to tell his secrets of FIFA and its president Joseph Sepp Blatter. Warner, who has been indicted in the bribery scandal, and denies any wrong doing, has promised to 'unleash a tide of evidence relating to the dealings of world soccer's governing body.'

The headline is a reference to the revelations in a paid political advertisement, entitled 'Jack Warner: The gloves are off' in which Warner said he had prepared a comprehensive series of documents on FIFA's financial transactions.

According to oxford dictionaries.com the phrase 'the gloves are off' is used to 'express the notion that something will be done in an uncompromising or ruthless way.' The phrase emanates from the sport of boxing. Gloves on indicated fair play according to standard rules, and gloves off indicates bare-knuckle fighting, generally without rules. Wiktionary.org indicates that the phrase is idiomatic to mean 'to argue or compete without regard to one's actions or feelings.' It adds that literally it means 'from the sport of boxing where competitors fistfight wearing padded gloves - removing the gloves during a fight could result in serious physical injury.' Another term that means the same as 'the gloves are off' is 'if push comes to shove.' And in this case, Warner has been shoved.

Wikepedia.org indicates that 'the die is cast' is a Latin phrase (alea iata est). Seutonius said it to Julius Caesar in 49BC when he led his army across the River Rubicon in Northern Italy in defiance to begin a long civil war. The phrase is used today to mean that 'events have passed a point of no return, that something, whatever it is, will inevitably happen.'

The sport in the article is not boxing; it is football (also called soccer in some countries). However, it seems that Jack Warner is in a heated mood and is acting or reacting without regard to someone's feelings - that being Blatter and FIFA. The article states that Warner said that 'Blatter had turned against him.' Warner will do as he says - he will reveal secrets. Hence the die is cast.

Scorecard for the Vice News headline is 100% for the blow-by-blow account of a 'gloves off' reaction, and a catchy headline that adds a second phrase of inevitability.



Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pir-E-Kamil - The Perfect Mentor by Umera Ahmed: book review

The Perfect Mentor pbuh  (2011) is set in Lahore and Islamabad in Pakistan. The novel commences with Imama Mubeen in medical university. She wants to be an eye specialist. Her parents have arranged for her to marry her first cousin Asjad. Salar Sikander, her neighbour, is 18 years old with an IQ of 150+ and a photographic memory. He has long hair tied in a ponytail. He imbibes alcohol, treats women disrespectfully and is generally a “weird chap” and a rude, belligerent teenager. In the past three years he has tried to commit suicide three times. He tries again. Imama and her brother, Waseem, answer the servant’s call to help Salar. They stop the bleeding from his wrist and save his life. Imama and Asjad have been engaged for three years, because she wants to finish her studies first. Imama is really delaying her marriage to Asjad because she loves Jalal Ansar. She proposes to him and he says yes. But he knows his parents won’t agree, nor will Imama’s parents. ...
1 comment
Read more

Flaws in the Glass, a self-portrait by Patrick White: book review

The manuscript, Flaws in the Glass (1981), is Patrick Victor Martindale White’s autobiography. White, born in 1912 in England, migrated to Sydney, Australia, when he was six months old. For three years, at the age of 20, he studied French and German literature at King’s College at the University of Cambridge in England. Throughout his life, he published 12 novels. In 1957 he won the inaugural Miles Franklin Literary Award for Voss, published in 1956. In 1961, Riders in the Chariot became a best-seller, winning the Miles Franklin Literary Award. In 1973, he was the first Australian author to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for The Eye of the Storm, despite many critics describing his works as ‘un-Australian’ and himself as ‘Australia’s most unreadable novelist.’ In 1979, The Twyborn Affair was short-listed for the Booker Prize, but he withdrew it from the competition to give younger writers the opportunity to win the award. His autobiography, Flaws in the Glass...
Post a Comment
Read more

Sister cities discussed: Canberra and Islamabad

Two months ago, in March 2015, Australia and Pakistan agreed to explore ways to deepen ties. The relationship between Australia and Pakistan has been strong for decades, and the two countries continue to keep dialogues open. The annual bilateral discussions were held in Australia in March to continue engagements on a wide range of matters of mutual interest. The Pakistan delegation discussed points of interest will include sports, agriculture, economic growth, trade, border protection, business, and education. The possible twinning of the cities of Canberra, the capital of Australia, and Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, were also on the agenda (i.e. called twin towns or sister cities). Sister City relationships are twinning arrangements that build friendships as well as government, business, culture, and community linkages. Canberra currently has international Sister City relationships with Beijing in China and Nara in Japan. One example of existing...
1 comment
Read more