Wellllll…actually, the French have several words that sound somewhat the same: souffle (sufl), souffle’, with an accent over the ‘e’ (sufle), and the verb souffler (sufle). The first one is pretty much pronounced like ‘sooful’, only more like ‘soofluh’. However, it means to catch one’s breath in the simplest form. It has other meanings when used in other contexts.
Now, perhaps he was making a pun in French, having to do with blowing out and then not being able to catch one’s breath, but I suspect it was just a lame joke.
For me, the low point of pointless Olympic commentary will always be in 1994 when Charles Kurault popped up in between hockey and skiing to do a five-minute piece titled “The tree outside my hotel window.” It was, without a doubt, the most staggeringly inane time-filler I’d ever seen. At the very least he could have followed it up with “The spare family I’ve got hidden in my closet.”
Bettis was joining NBC. Its a highly rated show and Costas, who is going to be Bettis’ studio mate, is already in Italy doing the Olympics. Good advertising space for NBC Sunday Night Football this fall.
Along the previous “steel” line of discussion where something sounds really dumb but actually isn’t, I used to be a nuclear engineer, and it turns out reactors DO sometimes operate at 105%. 100% is the power for which they were designed, but if you’re in a bad situation, especially on a boomer, sometimes you have to put the pedal to the metal, neutronically speaking. Funny, huh?
I do hate the “110 percent” line that is sickeningly overused in athletics (and poor business leadership). The only smart use of numbers I’ve ever heard come out of a sports interview was Mr. Lombardi’s “five minutes early is ON TIME.” Words to live by.
My most hated Olympics commentary - Dick Button going on for hours about the “annoying, unnatractive sitting position” used as an intermediate by some couples entering the “death spiral” in figure skating. It wasn’t annoying to me until I had to listen to you talk about it 15 times, Dick. Go have a shot of grappa. It’ll stop bothering you immediately.
Yep, you heard it rght. Button said it a few years ago during a performance by Angela Nikodinov. During that season I also heard him comment that Russian skater Alexander Abt should change his name to “Alexander Inapt.” Not only rude, but he screwed up the insult.
During the ladies’ long program on Thursday I heard the female commentator say about one skater: “oh, she has such great knees.”
When the USA surprisingly won the bronze in curling, two of the team members had to do their anti-doping tests, so suddenly after the break, there were only two team members being interviewed.
One of the team members explained the announcer that the other guys were having their drug tests done, and after that comment the announcer said: “Can you comment on your team chemistry?” :smack:
Well of course it did sound like he was referring to how good the team got along, but it sure was a really odd choice of words at that moment.
Did anyone else find it tacky that NBC asked Kwan to commentate (?) along with “Our Gang” (Button et al)? I thought that was kinda nasty. I know that there is nothing but ratings, but seriously…