A common comment you hear from Australians”

“All these are from a single Peter Siddle article, which is what prompted me to write. I also remember Jason Gillespie…”

Citing just two Aussies and proclaiming it’s common, is a pretty fucking ordinary assumption.

Kudos for remembering Adelaide. It’s the only mention I’ve heard from the English blogosphere since it happened.

A common comment you hear from Poms, is that they don’t like washing because they don’t like “soap”. However, what they have failed to understand is that failing to wash make them stink. blah blah blah.

It’s Sunday Bert, time for a bath mate!

What a load of fucken crap.

“…the biggest thing I could advise is that the bowlers focus on consistency. That was the biggest thing for us – and what we lacked this summer.”

“I never quite reached the consistency and the pace that I had in Australia and South Africa over the winter…”

All these are from a single Peter Siddle article, which is what prompted me to write. I also remember Jason Gillespie discussing the bowlers’ inconsistency after two tests (by which time they had actually been consistently poor). There are others.

And I agree, Ged. That idiom is, well, a bit ordinary. The Aussies started it – “Jeez that delivery was fairly ordinary, mate.” Botham does it because he is a secret Aussie. I guess it comes from either a philosophical standpoint that only excellence is acceptable (hence ordinary and awful are the same thing), or an unfamiliarity with words.

“That was a very ordinary delivery” to describe a long hop that sits up and begs to be hit for six. “That was a very ordinary shot” to describe the top edge that goes straight up in the air. Etc.

Botham is the worst offender but several others (some of whom do not have English as their first/only language and therefore should know better) flagrantly misuse the word ordinary.

In my opinion, the use of such euphemistic phrases is inconsistent. Ordinary even.

Good stuff Bert.