Bouncing Off the Walls

Most of the time the parts of our brain responsible
for our career as an English teacher and the part of our brain responsible
for our career as a Red Sox fan are completely separate, and that’s the
way we like it.

But once in a while, like we we get to escort a group
of students to Fenway Park, or when a Sox player will say something in
a locker room interview like, "I ain’t never been affiliated with none
of them substances," the wires get crossed and we get to play both roles
at the same time.

Lately, this has been happening more and more when we
are listening to games, both on radio and TV. It seems a new usage has
come into vogue for the term to one-hop the fence.

Now, to the best of our recollection, and from our long-gone
youth on the diamonds of upstate New York, to "one-hop the wall" means
to bounce once and go over the wall – a ground rule double in any league
from little to major.

But recently we have heard of balls one-hopping the
wall, and simultaneously bouncing off the wall and returning to the field
of play.  That is, using "to one-hop" to mean "reaching and bouncing
OFF of" rather than "reaching and bouncing OVER".

As in, "Ortiz smokes one on a rope to center field.
It one-hops the wall, and by the time Damon tracks it down, Big Popi
cruises into second with a stand-up double."

We don’t know why this bothers us, but it does.  "Get
over it," we tell ourself, "it’s just a new usage, the language changes,
that’s how you tell it’s not dead."

But let’s save "one-hops the fence" for those ground-rule
doubles, please. "Bouncing off the wall" is a dramatic enough image,
conjuring up as it does over-caffinated kids and
trips to the rubber room.

Next on the language front: The Dowbrigade’s proposal
to eliminate the letter "X" from the alphabet.