Friday, April 7, 2017

Possessive Pluralization of Players

A common literary device used in sports commentary is describing a style of player with the possessive pluralized name of a player that shares the attributes. It annoys me. Every time I hear it I cringe. 

As an example to describe a fast and range outfielder a commentator might say something like "The Mariners outfield defense was subpar in 2016 so they decided to target your Jarrod Dysons and Mitch Hanigers." This pluralization is complete unneeded and it annoys me. Instead the broadcaster could say the Mariners add players like Jarrod Dyson. It is much more accurate because there is only one Jarrod Dyson. He isn't a commodity that you can buy at Target. 

Another example is something like this "The Patriots are a great team with their Tom Bradys and Wes Welkers". It is just annoying. The Patriots only have one Tom Brady and one Wes Welker. They don't have multiple of the same player. These men are unique individuals. Their other quarterbacks aren't of Brady's ilk, so don't pluralize it to allude that they are. 

Every time I hear people describe professional athletes as possessive plurals it irks me. Possessive pluralization of athletes grinds my gears. It is such an easy problem to fix, but instead of correcting it the trend seems to be growing. I don't know how we can stop it, but we need to and fast!