As we prepare for the upcoming non-official national holiday known as the Super Bowl, are you thinking about vocab? Here's why you should be. Watching the Super Bowl is about more than football — it's about culture and shared experience, exchanging words to describe the game, talk about the players, and of course, critique the ads. The more words you can use, the more fun it will be.
So whether you're a football purist or you're in it for the seven-layer nachos dip, here are some word learning resources, Super Bowl-style.
If you're all about the game...
This learnable vocabulary list of football terms can work in two ways. For football novices, just learn the words and be more up on what going on as you watch. Football experts will probably already know these words in their football-specific senses. Here's the list with non-football definitions attached to the same words. Football fans should be able to master these words easily, given what they aleady know.
If you're drawn in by the Richard Sherman story...
Check out our vocabulary list based on journalist Rembert Browne's Grantland analysis of what we mean when we say, "He went to Stanford": Want to talk about Richard Sherman?
If you're really just watching the ads...
If "watch" is a word you interpret loosely when it comes to "watching the Super Bowl," bring some word knowledge to Sunday's gathering in case you get the opportunity to steer the conversation away from touchdowns and interceptions.
- Here, Vocabulary.com lexicographer Ben Zimmer dissects the super in Super Bowl and here, he discusses the origins of football-specific terms like pigskin and "hut, hut, hike!"
- Staying with super, this vocabulary list of super- words will introduce you to our "Power Prefix" morphology word learning series.
- Or you can tackle vocabulary from Don Delillo's story about football betting, "Total Loss Weekend," here.
