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I'm pretty sure I started hearing this last season, but now that the current season is underway it seems like everyone is using that term.
For those unfamiliar with American football terminology: A fair catch is when a kick is made to the receiving team, and the receiver holds up his hand indicating he will not run with the ball, effectively ending the play with the catch (unless the receiver bobbles and drops it). In the rule book, that is called a fair catch.
But when turning that noun into a verb, the commentators say: The ball was fair caught at the 30 (or whatever) yard line. That just doesn't sound right to my ears.
I suppose they could say: The ball was fairly caught at etc. Or maybe "The fair catch was made at etc. I have heard: The ball was fair catched but that is clearly grammatically incorrect, as the past tense of catch is caught.
My main problem with fair caught is that the word catch in the term fair catch is NOT a verb, it's a noun. And you can't have the past tense of a noun.
I keep thinking that it might be something similar to saying mothers-in-law instead of mother-in-laws, where part of a multi-word noun modifies another part of that multi-word noun, but can't quite put my finger on the linguistic connection. Anyone here have any insights on this?
I have a few quick observations, without any conclusions. This is a fascinating topic. It seems I've heard a lot of similarly awkward constructions around denominal verbs (verbing a noun) constructed from noun phrases -- but sadly, I will need to recollect them. When I do, I will add to the discussion.
However, in this case, catch is itself originally and fundamentally a verb. Here, a verb eventually became a deverbal noun catch, which came to be used in a noun phrase, and that noun phrase is occasionally being pressed into service as a denominal verb.
For me it is primarily the morphological inflections that make the result particularly awkward. If you can manage to avoid the internal changes and restrict inflection to suffixes, it flows better. I don't find the verb phrase fair catching nearly as disturbing as fair caught:
There he goes fair catching again!
Yeah, he fair catches all the time!
What do you think about this passive use of fair caught?
The ball was fair caught.
To me it sounds less jarring than the active verb.
Sheila fair caught the ball right on the 20.
Sorry, no answers, but great interest.
For you fans of the "other" football, consider the much simpler analogs of corner kick, or better the basketball free throw. Can you say this?
Chris corner kicked the ball. / Inez free threw ten times.
Pat has been corner kicking the whole game! / Olive has been free throwing the whole game.
Thanks for the feedback, Glenn. I was hoping to hear more from others, but it's been a week since the last post to this thread.
First, pardon my use of the awkward term multi-word noun when I should have said noun phrase. I knew that term, but just spaced it.
Here's some interesting specs ...
"Fair catch" gets 335,000 hits on Google.
"Fair caught" gets 25,800.
"Fair catched" gets 1,240 (not surprisingly).
I really think this is one of those linguistic gray areas. Especially since "fair caught" falls into the jargon niche. A descriptivist (like Grant) would probably advise me to just accept it as an evolutionary change in language (albeit jargon). So I'll try not to wince when I hear it. But if I ever had to write the past tense for "fair catch" I'd probably just revise the sentence to something like "The ball was taken as a fair catch on the 30 yard line."
Regarding your suggestions of "corner kicked" and "free threw" ... not sure why, but those don't bother me nearly as much as "fair caught." Not sure why.
If I say "He made a fair catch" fair is an adjective and catch a noun, simple enough. When "fair catch" becomes a verb it still has the adjective in front of it, though now we want an adverb: "The ball was fairly caught".
But once "fair caught" is in use, "fairly caught" just sounds fussy, something I don't think many sportscasters would want to be.
Could we make the case that "fair" is simply a flat adverb (e.g.soon, fast)? Both "fair" and "fairly" are acceptable adverbs: The day broke fair; a claim fairly made, but the flat form seems a little more archaic and colorful.
Googling "fair caught" brought up "Gesture and the Nature of Language" (David F Armstrong et al. 1995) The authors also have trouble with "fair caught" and cite "flied out" (in baseball) as similarly problematic. But saying "flew out" could get us into trouble: "The batter flew out to center field." Perhaps on a jetpack. The authors also cite "slud" as a past tense of "slide", and I'll bet more sportscasters say "snuk" than "sneaked'. I think a good dose of colloquialisms is part of the job.
It is a well established pattern that 2-piece compounds are formed with the 1st part constant, while the 2nd part freely modified to be verb, noun, adjective : french-kiss, fly-fish, deep-fry, hard-boil, hand-knit, etc. Fair-catch is that sort of compound, so the 'fair' in there should not change.
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Grant Barrett
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