Reading time: Less than 1 minute
I like to share interesting pieces of figurative language I encounter in my reading. I write today about a metaphor from newspaper columnist Elizabeth Renzetti.
I have almost no interest in sports. Even the Olympics and the World Cup can barely get me worked up (although the complete routing of Brazil earlier this week did grab my attention for a couple of minutes.) But Wimbeldon? Not so much. I don’t play tennis and I don’t watch it.
Still, when a Canadian woman made it to the finals, I was intrigued. Eugenie Bouchard seems like a winner (even though she lost) and while I didn’t watch the game, I applaud her effort and I’m glad to see a woman do so well and at such a young age.
I also agree with the opinion that women’s sports are under-reported upon by the media and not given nearly enough attention by the general public. In Canada, where I live, for example, we have an truly great women’s soccer team, but you’d barely know it existed for all the attention that men’s soccer gets. (And with so much less success, in Canada, anyway.)
Globe and Mail columnist Elizabeth Renzetti complained about this in her Monday column this week. I agree with her. Better than that, her figurative language made me laugh out loud. Here’s the line that did it:
Outside of the Olympics and a couple of other premium events, you’d have more luck finding a chocolate bar in Gwyneth Paltrow’s purse than a women’s sports match on prime-time TV in North America.
I like the way she manages to skewer readers of Sports Illustrated and People Magazine with one sharply honed fingernail.
